December's poem

Triads on Smallness

Ellen Phethean

Three euphemisms for small:
bijou, tabloid, elegant sufficiency

Three small sizes:
32 double A, a pub measure, a baby carrot

Three small but important dots:
the dot that makes the crotchet swing, the dot that makes the email more deadly than the mail, the dot of time

Three small but perfectly formed fruits:
the kumquat, the wild strawberry, the cherry tomato

Three small clichés:
small but perfectly formed, good things come in small packets, well just a small one then

Three things it's better not to do:
have too many small ones, get lost in pampas grass, believe in emails offering amplitude

Three communities of size:
the Wee Free, jockeys, the seven dwarves

Three ways of celebrating Small:
write poems on Post-Its, carry cocktail parasols, scatter multicoloured hundreds and thousands wherever you go

Three petite poetic structures:
Triolet, Versicle, Haiku,

Three great miniatures:
bonsai trees, dolly mixtures, the 2nd Earl of Essex

Three small lies:
you'll grow, size doesn't matter, lots of famous people were small

Three ideas to ponder as you fall asleep:
which famous people were small, why seven dwarves, the nature of relativity

Three small moments in a lifetime:
the sperm meets the egg, the blink of an eye, the last breath