perfection

This is one of the best similes I've ever read:

Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,

saying the words over and over.

It feels like eating 

the same small, perfect grape

again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it

and leave its letters falling

through the air of every room.

These are the first three stanzas of Billy Collins' poem, "Japan." I read this poem for the first time in college, and still remember that wonderful phrase and how perfect it is. "Japan" is a great poem. You can read the rest of it in Picnic, Lightning or Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems.

I'm not a big poetry reader myself, but Billy Collins is definitely worth reading.