Symbols
Life is the ultimate virus — it kills everyone. It’s also a symbol — of love. March 7, 2020 Symbols Flight and Bird — and then one day Light became Word, And Sky and Heart concurred.
Tag Archive for ‘Words’
Troonk and Hamph
Among other things, in his journal entry for May 25, 1852, Thoreau mentions hearing the first troonk of a bullfrog — a lovely word, although I have for years spelled the sound hamph — this based on my recurring basso profondo imitation of bullfrogs heard while drifting with my father in his twelve-foot aluminum boat down California’s Kings River, in that lazy stretch below the town of Reedley where it […]
Wealth
It took the whole day yesterday to change — one word. What patience they both had! — and not a shred of jealousy. You first — It’s not my turn — Are you sure? I held the door — the train — left — the station. How lonely the platform! — the night — concurred. February 4, 2020 Wealth n. so little there’s nothing left that wasn’t here before […]
Shadows on the Sidewalk
For sidewalk, Walt Whitman liked to use the word trottoir. Offhand, I can think of no other nineteenth century American writer who did so — this, of course, based on my faulty memory and limited reading. Word choice aside, one thing I’m noticing this time through his Specimen Days, is that buildings and trains are every bit as alive to him as oaks and sparrows — indeed, in his poetic […]
Imagine a Word
They’ll say we knew each other, that we spoke to each other in poems, and that when at long last evening fell, we were solemn, we were still. December 4, 2019. Evening. Imagine a Word Imagine a word deep in its image, and a page in an ice age burning for warmth. Imagine a tongue that is fire, before learning to speak. Imagine the ashes, and what they are […]
Paradise, Tragedy, Love
Near the river this morning, we walked through beds of maple leaves six or eight inches deep. The leaves are still bright. And there is a pungency about them, for in the moist atmosphere their undersides are already being consumed by the elements. What sticks to our shoes is paradise to a host of our fellow beings, even as we innocently help hasten their end. And so paradise and tragedy […]
Fall, Love
All my words are broken. The pieces are bright-colored leaves. My limbs are bare. Love falls through me. And the wind in your hair is what meaning means.
A Warm Muffin and a Fresh Ripe Orange
The weather turns cold, and here I am with my books again — the book of fallen leaves, and of the cloudless night and bright moon — the book of wordless days, and of the failing light in my work room — and glad I am, love, you will be home soon. October 9, 2019 A Warm Muffin and a Fresh Ripe Orange Imagine loving silence and solitude so […]
Canvas 842 — Pictures and Poems
Roll was called. The words lined up in rows. What do you want to be when you grow up? Pictures or poems? Pictures! they cried out. Poems! And from that day on they all were both.
Brevity
I use words to show none are needed. And I smile. “Brevity Loves Company” Recently Banned Literature, February 4, 2018 Brevity As each petal is wise in the purpose and symmetry of a flower, so must be the words we choose, each an action with a will to bloom. Be brave, be brief, beware the power you wield; thoughtless use is profound abuse. Brevity is depth of character, the […]
