High-flying osprey
Wings spread taut and motionless
Sun’s mocking eyebrow
Probably influenced by my having just read a Somerset Maugham story wherein egrets suddenly evolve into ospreys. Perhaps he was confused because in those days ‘osprey plumes’ were often actually taken from egrets?
If you’ve read Senryū — or the copious (not to say unnecessary) footnotes that accompany it — you’ll notice that this is in the 5-7-5 syllable format usually employed by English haiku writers, not an attempt to apply a more authentic 5-7-5 on format, the Japanese on being a finer-grained unit of phonology than the English syllable. I don’t know if I’ll ever repeat that experiment. So much to write, so little time…