'A Walk' is the first completed poem to be discarded from the anthology. An early composition, its pathos is lost in lacklustre lines. Moreover, I could never forgive myself for fabricating a landscape for the sake of rhyme (the hill depicted is treeless)!

Why eight lines when four will suffice?

A haze of dust in the distance overlooked by the majestic Riviersonderend ('river without end') mountain range, photographed in mid-autumn, 18 April 2018, Overberg region, Western Cape Province, South Africa.

Assume that you do not need an exclamation mark.

A humorous abstract of the dilemma traditional art is about to face.

It is a painful thing when a line exceeds the available column width.

Life is a scherzo.

Autumn comes to a German forest.

The winter water slow— Like oil through the snow.

The sun through the trees Stripped of their leaves.

It is summer in South Limburg, and one of my favourite sights is the baby blue blossoms of woodland forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) stilly adorning the waysides.

I would like to ask whoever curates Apple Music's 'Meditation Moments' classical playlist how Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, can possibly be considered an appropriate choice.

I understand that ‘lent et douloureux’ is the tempo Satie intended for Gymnopédie No. 1, but Reinhart de Leeuw’s sluggish rendition slows it to such an agonising crawl that the melody all but evaporates. One longs for it to end, convinced that it ever will.