Another little spell of R&R, dear reader, before you return to the trenches of political warfare!
Actually, this is not, strictly speaking, a poem, it is a song lyric, but, as far as I know, it is the only song lyric written in strict Haiku form. (You can bring dinner parties to a dead halt by dropping a remark like that!) For those, like me, not up on Japanese verse, a Haiku is a three-line poem in which there are 5-syllables in each of the first and last lines, and seven in the middle line, making a total of seventeen. Obviously , the third stanza is simply a linking chorus. Whatever, this is an enormously evocative lyric which I would treat as poetry anyway, and allied with an unforgettable melody, it becomes a truly great song.
Moonlight in Vermont by John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf
Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves a sycamore
Moonlight in Vermont
Gentle finger waves
Ski trails down a mountain side
Snowlight in Vermont
Telegraph cables, how they sing down the highway
As they travel each bend in the road
And when people meet, in this romantic setting
They're so hypnotized by the lovely...
Evening summer breeze
Sweet warblings of the meadowlark
Moonlight in Vermont
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