Nuance

(Original Infinity Nets by Yayoi Kusama, born
1929, Japanese painter, performance artist, and
creator of installation art)

The traditional form of the Japanese haiku is a verse confined to seventeen syllables, when composed in English. But the poet Amy Lowell feels no obligation to follow this rule exactly, as we see in these two poetic expressions of tenderness. “I have endeavored,” she writes, “only to keep the brevity and suggestion of the hokku [haiku] and to preserve it within its natural sphere.”

NUANCE

Even the iris bends
When a butterfly lights upon it.

A LOVER

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly,
I could see to write you a letter.

~ Amy Lowell (1874-1925), American Imagist poet