Her cat lay languid, a pooling shadow on the floor as the leaf-dappled sunlight rippled and slid across the tiles. Then she glided, soundlessly, from room to room, the light seeming to follow her.

The sun swiftly sped from the house as daylight succumbed to dark. And with it all hope of redemption was lost.

Or …

Her cat lay languid

A pooling shadow on the floor

Leaf-dappled sunlight rippled and slid across the tiles

Gilding the cat as she glided soundlessly

From room to room

The sun swiftly sped from the house

As daylight succumbed to dark

And with the sun, went all hope of redemption

The first two lines of the “poem” came to me while looking at our cat lying on the floor. But it was jotted down as in the prose version. Everything that came after the first two lines felt as if it came out of nowhere and just sort of happened.

When I’d written it all down, I read it aloud with breaks and pauses. It felt like a poem.

Which brought me to wondering if there is ever really any difference between prose and poetry? Yes, I changed a few things to make the prose more like a poem, but the essence is still there. And yes, the poem does not rhyme or have a specific meter. But there are all sorts of ways to approach writing poetry. And you could consider paragraphs of prose to simply be extra long verses.

Now I’m starting to pick nits.

What it all boils down to, though, is this …

It seems to me that well-written prose is its own sort of poetry.

Images courtesy of Los Angeles Times and PictureQuotes, respectively.