In a lifetime with pen in hand or with fingers at the typewriter (or, latterly, at the word processor), I've written a lot of bad sentences and a handful of good ones. But last week, I composed my absolute best sentence ever. It's pure Olympic gold; a bottom-of-the-ninth walk-off bases-loaded HR; a sensational buzzer-beater. Deathless prose.
Let us pause to savor this extraordinary sentence. "I could have been a better prairie dog."
Aficionados of Vivian de St. Vrain (fit audience, though few) will remember that this mellifluous sentence appeared just a few days ago, right here. You can appreciate it in context, if you will, but heck, the sentence stands alone.
It is beautiful in itself but one can only marvel at its delicate but meaningful irony. Moreover, (bonus) it's near-perfect iambic pentameter.
It's become, for me, a mantra of sorts. Whenever I start to bemoan my fate, or deplore my state, or bother myself over some missed opportunity or long-ago failure, I mumble, "I could have been a better prairie dog." And I immediately regain perspective. So it's a sentence that's utile as well as dulce – as useful as it is sweet. Classic.
I'm absolutely confident that "I could have been a better prairie dog" will help me through episodes of middle-of-the-night self-laceration. In fact, it's working just as I write this.
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