Reclining sensually in a letter from my friend was a fragment of beautifully evocative prose - a literal Caravaggio still-life resting among the earnest entries in the Art Section of the Annual Kyogle Agricultural Show, or Leonardo's Mona Lisa sitting quietly in the crowded waiting room of a facio-maxillary surgeon - a fleck of gold in prosaic dross.
A beautiful, simple sentence, but also an almost perfect haiku, with 19 syllables in three phrases of 5, 7 and 7 syllables respectively, instead of 17.
A beautiful, simple sentence, but also an almost perfect haiku, with 19 syllables in three phrases of 5, 7 and 7 syllables respectively, instead of 17.
The third phrase, as it stands, is particularly beautiful and shouldn't be castrated to 5 syllables simply to satisfy a bunch of pedantic, pretentious, anally-retentive Japs.
So: now that it's summer
the sun, sinking in the west
shines on the cup you gave me.
Beautiful.