Composing haiku is high art in Japan. It is what you can do with a single breath. In essence, it is a search for the sublime in seventeen syllables. Meter is important, wanting to be both regular yet uneven, more a zigzag than smooth arc, typically five seven five. When elegantly formed as if a part of nature, no human concern is off limits.
A single human breath. Needless to say everyone hopes to be breathing clean air, so this definition offers a perfect set up for an environmental haiku which I call Compound Interest:
You cannot burn more
Simply because you have more
Carbon Dioxide
Then I want to turn it around and call it Carbon Dioxide:
You cannot burn more
Simply because you have more
Compound interest
Let me know which way it sticks in your head. If this appeals to you, you might want to purchase In One Breath by Charles Wehrenberg from the Amazon.com Kindle store.
