The Japanese invented
haiku certain that a painting
of great beauty could
be completed with only
a few strokes of the brush.
The Japanese have no word
for what we claim is higher
order poetry, academic and
pedantic are two other English
words which easily apply.
And the Japanese are hard put
to comprehend so much of what
we deem experimental, the result,
a friend named Yoshi said,
of what seems the odd scraps
of a dictionary torn apart
by an unexpected tornado.
In Tokyo every tree knows
that at least four
poems lie within it, each
awaiting the appropriate
season.
