I tried very hard to get a haiku from Ronovan’s Please & Tease word prompt and gave up. This is a tanka, with a very tenuous connection, in spirit only, to those two words. I’m offering it to the Real Toads’ imaginary garden where I think it will be happy.
Photo©Oregon State University
In the deep pool, trout,
immobile in summer shade,
waits for the ripple,
tastes the stippled light dimple
of the mayfly’s fatal skim.
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Gosh you are talented, Jane. :-)) Beautiful.
Thank you! I’m glad you like the tanka. It was beyond me to get those two words into a haiku though!
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
Thank you!
I certainly like it very much. Excellent selection of words, for both sound qualities and meaning. You captured the almost freeze frame moment perfectly.
Thank you, Kerry 🙂 I think there’s a word for the way trout and salmon keep still in a river current but I’ve forgotten it. I’m glad the sense came over anyway.
If the mayfly only lived long enough to know better… alas.
Maybe it’s just as well. There’d be a lot of hungry trout around if mayflies started learning survival tactics 🙂
Also, it would suck the fun out of the I-Dare-You-to-Ripply-and-Fly game, which I’m sure every young mayfly loves to play. 😀
That’s why so few of them live to be old 🙂
Rolls of the tongue like it was meant to be there.
Thank you, Colleen 🙂
Those mayflies only live for about a day or so anyway, if it’s any consolation to them.
I don’t suppose they care. Too busy dancing with death on the skin of the river 🙂
This was fantastic. I really loved the use of stipple – excellent word choice.
Thank you! It’s a Manley Hopkins sort of a word, and very suitable for trout pools, I think.
Oh this is absolutely brilliant wordplay!❤️
Thank you, Sanaa! I just couldn’t get those two words into a poem as they were.
oh the imagery 🙂
I’m pleased you like it 🙂
you’re welcome 🙂
It’s interesting how you’ve turned this event into such poetry
Thank you! There is natural poetry in a trout in a shady pool 🙂
“Fatal skim” is a very satisfying ending, for me.
You a trout or something? Glad you liked it 🙂
You amaze and impress me with every poem!
You mean like avoiding the set words? I’m pleased you like the result though, even if I couldn’t get those particular words in.
Beautiful picture and poem!
Thank you, Vashti 🙂