The Pond

          old pond;













  abruptly, the sound 
               of a frog,

         splashing in

Then a gap, white space, the first break with normalcy, albeit quite minor, to "abruptly, the sound," coming with a touch of discordancy from too far left. Now, I could have had "splash" here. That would have condensed the poem substantially. But "sound" is of extreme importance here, in my view, as something not only transient, as opposed to the old pond, but immaterial. Also, I wanted to emphasize the quietude of the old pond to that point, which also explains "abruptly." I also like the "rupt" in the latter, and its taking three syllables to break into the scene. On the other hand, I am uncertain I oughtn't have gone with "the sound" by itself. . . .

In my next-to-final draft (of this draft), I had "of a frog" in my second line, but felt it pushed the line too far to the right. Hence, I put it under "abruptly, the sound"--and gave it a substantial indentation, to let the sound sink in.

Then, another gap, this one small, to "splashing in," which was "splashing into it" until I decided the reader had to know the frog wasn't splashing into the shore or sky. The white space is mainly to give the poem three "stanzas" to suggest the three lines of a tradition haiku. The splash, of course, is mandatory, to connect the frog to the pond--and portray a visual disruption to go with the auditory disruption. I continue to believe "splash-in" makes a more effective ending because a single two-syllable word rather than two words in three syllables, but discarded it (who knows for how long) because its slanginess draws too much attention to itself.

I love the way making a haiku forces one to consider just about every fraction of a syllable, but must admit that it is emotionally exhausting. There is a tendency to invest so much in such considerations to have no energy left to appreciate the final result. But when effective, such full commitment will assure appreciation once one has recovered.

Actually, I tend to commit equally to my longer poems--which is no doubt why they are long only in comparison to haiku.

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