December 11 - December 17 is the 50th week of the Gregorian calendar.  This week, we are in the Solar Term of Major Snow (Dec 07 - Dec 21), and the micro-seasons of  “The Sky is Cold, Winter Comes” (Dec 07 - Dec 13), and “The Bear Retreats to its Den” (Dec. 12 -Dec 16). The haiku selected for this week were written by Basho, Issa, Buson, Reichhold, and Kerouac.