What I like about haiku is that it's very organic and unpretentious. It's really a living awareness about what's going on around us in the natural world, but also an awareness of how we, as humans, insert ourselves into the natural world.

This haiku about the market, for instance: it really came to me. It was something that really happened. I was at the farmer's market, just walking around, doing my thing, when I looked over, and here's a guy, so very carefully examining this cantaloupe. And he happened to be bald. It was one of those natural connections.

The poem came to me in that instant. That isn't to say I didn't work on it to revise it. I did. But that was actual experience, in the moment, right then and there.

Magical or mundane, trains were once a necessity. A train ride to New York City, east and then south, with the Palisades on the right and the Hudson River on the left, is hypnotic for me. Watch a movie from the '40s or '50s to see the trains depicted, the bustle recreated.

Hearing a train whistle off in the distance on a dark night reminds me of being a kid, staying with my grandparents. It was always a familiar, comforting echo. Writing haiku for over 15 years has helped me to see things, to really observe what is going on around me. There are still trains everywhere, moving all the time. If you listen carefully, you'll hear them around Syracuse, even at night.