Quote:
Originally Posted by Eadha Deora
"eyes of sea" ... have you ever noticed how the sea is so fluid, so undecided in its colour .... "eyes of sea" is the briefest way I can say something like "and he had eyes like the sea, full and deep and knowing, that changed from grey to green or blue, even brown, depending on his mood, and could sweep you away in the tide of their beauty and gentleness"
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Quite so. And really, the slightly odd or atypical way you lay it out breaks up the pattern of a somewhat common simile or metaphor, and brings the reader back to consider it without moving over it automatically.
"Eyes of sea" and the way you expand on it here reminds me of a sketch I did with my father in mind -- it was called "Caithness Eyes" --
". . . his eyes were the plain eyes of all Caithness men, blue or grey on the whim of the sea. . . "
and at the end: "I knew him not by looking into his eyes, but by looking at what he himself was seeing. I told him so, once, and he looked away outward to sea, and his plain Caithness eyes were the sea, and looking away outward with him I found all my answer."