Haiku: Seasonal Japanese Art and Poetry Boxed Notecard AssortmentThe roots of Japanese haiku reach back over a thousand years. In this poetic form, as in life, there is a pause, a shift, in which the poet celebrates sensory awareness of the season, perhaps suggested by the scent of peony blossoms or the silence of snow covered tree limbs. The timeless appeal of this understated poetry may be the human desire to capture ones impressions of a fleeting moment. Such seasonal allusions emphasize the essence of haiku: