Extreme Compression: the Heroic Couplet
 

Leonardo

Whether for love of flight or liberty
he bought caged birds, only to set them free.

--from the Deed of Gift

Spring Cleaning

Their pinions whistle as the pintails fly,
feather dusters brushing the April sky.

--from Very Far North

On his Sixtieth Birthday

I was sixteen not very long ago
and thought “Ski!” when I shoveled heavy snow.

--today

I've only compressed a poem into an heroic couplet three times in my life, at age 25, then again at age 50, and finally now. How many others have done these tiny things? Or would like to try it now?

Billboard

The death around her eyes and tilted head,
tell little girls that they are better dead.