Loving the haiku today! What a fantastic form. I thought I would share the classics. Here is my favourite, the tender and whimsical Kobayashi Issa:

O snail
Climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) is another great haiku master:

I want to sleep
Swat the flies
Softly, please.

After killing
a spider, how lonely I feel
in the cold of night!

Basho, recognized for centuries as the great haiku exponent, says,

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

Autumn moonlight-
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.

In the twilight rain
these brilliant-hued hibiscus –
A lovely sunset.

and Kobayashi Issa again,

Everything I touch
with tenderness, alas,
pricks like a bramble.

And no hypocrisy from these old masters either. I wonder what they would think of the ways in which religions have been commodified and weaponized and devoid of compassion in all corners of the globe. Issa says,

All the time I pray to Buddha 
I keep on 
    killing mosquitoes.