Haiku is a short ancient Japanese poetry form that is traditionally about nature. Beatnik poet Jack Kerouac popularized the haiku form in America. Etheridge Knight (from Indianapolis) was awesome at haiku.

As a poetic discipline, I wrote over 250 haikus from the Gospels in a six week period in 2002, Here is one of those haikus:

Notice that the haiku form is 5-7-5 in terms of beats per line.

In 2003 I was talking to my poet/friend Richard Jones at CATH, Inc. He encouraged me to attempt a tanka. The tanka is an ancient Japanese form which begins with a 5-7-5 haiku. It ends with two 7 beat lines that are meant to shed light on the haiku above it.

I asked Richard to suggest a passage in the Bible which contained imagery of nature. (Richard is also a theologian). He turned to Isiah 55:12-13. Immediately the words of the prophet formed a tanka in my mind. Here is what I came up with: