I'm going to quote a few lines from A Dark and Quiet Room by Seth Ben-Ezra: ". . . part of haiku is pointing attention at the overlooked. Haiku can therefore be used to call attention to overlooked people. . . . haiku cannot merely be read; they must be contemplated. I might even say that they need to be meditated upon. This attitude of contemplation or meditation carries over into the rest of life. Suddenly, you find yourself watching leaves blowing along the road or cream swirling in your coffee and realize that these things matter. . . . And then, perhaps, you look at the unnoticed people around you, the ones that are mere details in your life, and you realize that they also matter. Like the cashier at the grocery store, the one that everyone treats as though she were merely the biological wetware of the point of sale system. Maybe even she has started to believe it. But you know better, don't you? Because there is immeasurable worth in the commonplace. . . . All that from haiku? Absolutely."