mythical river

the colors of the sun

up to moonrise

***
This haiku is very evocative, but it has hidden subtlety. The description of the river as “mythical” seems to put us in the realm of the fairy tale, or imagination. And yet I am reading it as a real river, made supernatural by the play of light. The colors of the sun can be day merging into sunset until the moon rises. Both sun and moon share the sky, which is in itself archetypical–a kind of East of The Sun and West of The Moon feeling. These cosmic sources saturate the small poem and it is colorful–although none of the colors is ever described directly. It is the reader who provides this reaction shot.
How lovely!