When after weeks of agonising over a poem, its completion is in sight, and its format, length, rhyming scheme and metre—the very words that make up its lines—seem so obvious, natural and inevitable, a part of one (somewhat confusingly and despite knowing the answer) ponders how something so simple—and, to one’s mind, pleasant—could arise from so agonising and complex a process!

I have whittled the variations of the last stanza of “Mist on the Mountain” down to three; a task that has consumed me for more than a week. One of these shall appear in the final draft, likely in altered form. As the completion of the poem draws near, I am overcome with anticipation!