In the Heat of July

late afternoon walk--
taste of ice cubes
against my lips


Kenneth Yasuda, a Japanese-American writer on haiku, believed that each one should answer these three questions: "what, when, and where." Generally, the image itself is the "what." And the "when" and "where" may be stated or more often implied.

Interesting haiku fact: Beat writer Jack Kerouac introduced many Americans to this concise form of poetry. In "The Dharma Bums" one of the characters, Japhy Ryder wrote haiku. In this book by Kerouac, which was published in 1958, he based Ryder on his friend, the poet Gary Snyder who spent many years in Japan.