Honing • Try Again
Lately I’ve been working on honing my writing. I aspire to say more with less. A casual sifting through the archives of this blog will show you that that hasn’t been my usual approach. But over the last few months, with the pace of my life slowed to a feral speed and only paper and pencil to draft with, the importance of paring down has finally begun to really impress itself on me.
An inspiration of mine is the haiku. What soft magic to reach deep into a moment and pluck only three lines from its heart which tell of everything within and without you. The few words given are just enough to let the voice inside you tell the rest—a voice than which none speaks to you more perfectly. A haiku: a grape, handed to you, that, eaten, causes you to feel the tendriling of the vines, the warmth of the sun, the fullness of the soil.
And as a result of this honing, unexpectedly, poems seem to be slipping out here and there, condensing on my cave ceiling until they drip. They’re still beginning excursions. Perhaps within this lifetime I might begin to feel they aren’t.
Try Again
- A certain Madman
- In the hills outside the capital
- Was known for never being wrong,
- Except about things that later proved unimportant.
- One latter day,
- Having exhausted other resorts,
- An important Questioner hiked up
- To ask, for governmental advisement:
- “How can we save our world?”
- “Couldn’t say. Never been there.”
- So the Questioner let him stand
- On a street corner downtown
- All day long,
- Then asked again.
- The Madman inhaled through his teeth.
- “Ooh. Better not.”
- Unsatisfied, the Questioner asked next day:
- “Then how can each of us save our lives?”
- “Couldn’t say. Never seen one.”
- So the Questioner let him stay
- In her modern house
- All day long,
- Then asked again.
- The Madman warily eyed his surroundings.
- “You’ll have to get one first.”
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2 Comments
alfi
HistoryI think I jumped on your last post and missed this one .
nice! you purposely made a contrast between a madman who is living outside capital and a questioner who has a modern house
alfi
HistoryI think I jumped on your last post and missed this one .
nice! you purposely made a contrast between a madman who is living outside capital and a questioner who has a modern house