the old priest dines his wine just wine — David Lanoue, Modern Haiku #30.1, 1999
Another example of a verse that makes very effective use of rhyme and repetition. Every word counts, and in these eight small words there is a great deal of ‘surplus meaning’ for a reader to divine (divine, the apposite word). The key word, obviously, is “just.”
“old:” he has lived almost a lifetime, gaining wisdom from it.
“priest:” sets the religious context. And a man of some education. A man who cares.
“dines:” the end of the day, and off duty. We assume that he is probably dining alone.
“his wine:” a man of taste, if not abstinence, who savours his small pleasures. Is that a weakness, or a strength?
In this appealing verse we have unvoiced allusion to ritual and belief. We’re invited to ponder the difference—if any—between the wine of the sacrament and the wine accompanying the priest’s dinner (which might be out of the same bottle for all we know). There is, in its composition, no difference. The only difference is symbolic, the meaning with which it is imbued by the faithful, in the context of ritual communion and covenant alone, following the Last Supper.
Nearing the end of his life, we wonder whether the old priest still believes. Has he inwardly concluded that wine is just wine and to be enjoyed as such? That life is just life and its pleasures to be enjoyed as such. We may surmise that if so, he will continue to offer communion because it’s his job, his custom, and because it offers comfort to others. As for himself, by himself, he enjoys a glass of wine for its own sake.
You can cue Confucius on the role of ritual in binding society. You can ponder the appropriation of wine by many faiths as a symbol of spiritual joy, divine blessing, life force, and offering to the gods. You can contemplate the nature of religious belief; and of doubt. The many Japanese haiku poets who struggled with Buddhist abstinence. The outlawing of wine under Shariah law in the home of Shiraz, that fine old grape variety, punishable by flogging or prison. Or you can simply savour this sketch of a wise old priest knowing his pleasures and indulging them harmlessly, without the complications of religion, while he can. Just wine. All conveyed in a highly economical, musical, lip-smacking verse, yet again made more memorable in rhyme—call it what you will.
the old priest dines
his wine
just wine
— David Lanoue, Modern Haiku #30.1, 1999
Another example of a verse that makes very effective use of rhyme and repetition. Every word counts, and in these eight small words there is a great deal of ‘surplus meaning’ for a reader to divine (divine, the apposite word). The key word, obviously, is “just.”
“old:” he has lived almost a lifetime, gaining wisdom from it.
“priest:” sets the religious context. And a man of some education. A man who cares.
“dines:” the end of the day, and off duty. We assume that he is probably dining alone.
“his wine:” a man of taste, if not abstinence, who savours his small pleasures. Is that a weakness, or a strength?
“just wine:” by implication, not, or no longer, the blesséd wine of the sacrament.
In this appealing verse we have unvoiced allusion to ritual and belief. We’re invited to ponder the difference—if any—between the wine of the sacrament and the wine accompanying the priest’s dinner (which might be out of the same bottle for all we know). There is, in its composition, no difference. The only difference is symbolic, the meaning with which it is imbued by the faithful, in the context of ritual communion and covenant alone, following the Last Supper.
Nearing the end of his life, we wonder whether the old priest still believes. Has he inwardly concluded that wine is just wine and to be enjoyed as such? That life is just life and its pleasures to be enjoyed as such. We may surmise that if so, he will continue to offer communion because it’s his job, his custom, and because it offers comfort to others. As for himself, by himself, he enjoys a glass of wine for its own sake.
You can cue Confucius on the role of ritual in binding society. You can ponder the appropriation of wine by many faiths as a symbol of spiritual joy, divine blessing, life force, and offering to the gods. You can contemplate the nature of religious belief; and of doubt. The many Japanese haiku poets who struggled with Buddhist abstinence. The outlawing of wine under Shariah law in the home of Shiraz, that fine old grape variety, punishable by flogging or prison. Or you can simply savour this sketch of a wise old priest knowing his pleasures and indulging them harmlessly, without the complications of religion, while he can. Just wine. All conveyed in a highly economical, musical, lip-smacking verse, yet again made more memorable in rhyme—call it what you will.