“Semi shigure” describes the shower of cicada song that fills the air in midsummer. It is a perfect 5 syllables, just right for haiku.

Haiku, in case you’ve forgotten from your 8th grade English composition class, is a three line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. The poem must include words to invoke time, particularly a season. The words are often the names of plants or animals that are associatated with a certain time of year.

Oogoe de
Ame ga futeiru
Semi shigure

That’s one of my own haiku which loosely translated means “Rain is falling with a loud voice, cicada showers.” Haiku are difficult to write. The best ones are oblique; mine are always too direct. I claim it has to do with my lack of vocabulary, but my English ones are too direct as well. Posted by kuri at July 28, 2000 08:14 AM