Foolish tender buds!
Don't believe this sunny day --
Nipping cold ahead.
I've always loved haiku -- those spare Japanese verse forms that require a strict 5-7-5 syllables. They're good practice for any writer --- forcing you to choose just the perfect word.
There are haikus in my notebooks that I've worked on interminably -- always searching for a better word. I'm already looking back at this one thinking -- hmm, would frost be a better word than cold? Then my inner gardener says smugly, Frost won't hurt daffodils but a freeze would. Than the would-be poet says, Nah, don't like the sound of freeze; what about ice?
I could go on and on, fiddling with the words -- and sometimes end up back where I began.
A note: concerning my post about my dream of Nietzche on the beach -- my younger son recently reminded me that when I first told him that dream, the shoplifting philosopher in question was Kierkegaarde. True. I'd forgotten I changed it to Nietzche because it scanned better.
Whew! I feel better now that I've admitted that.
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