14 January 2005

Autumn Haiku

Never was 100% sure how western syllables fitted (or did not) into the 5 - 7 - 5 haiku ruling.

David Blaber's prize-winning entry in The Spectator provides a good aide-memoire :

Why rehash the mists,
The mellow fruitfulness, all
That melancholy?

Why waste sound metre
On what's moribund, and rhyme
On mouldering leaves?

No elegy can
Evoke the season, only
The sigh of haiku.

Let autumn, once named,
Fade, in rationed syllables,
Silently, with grace.

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