A seña, then, is not a sign
nor yet quite a signal;
neither quite a gesture
nor a code.
There is more lost
in flattening the tilde
than the breasts of mourning,
or the sehnsucht of heimweh:
it is signed but not sealed
set but not sent;
silent, unseen -- an
unpictured scenery,
an encipherment
of zero.
In response to Luisa Igloria's response to Dave Bonta's Morning Porch for today
lengua de señas (spanish) = sign language
ReplyDeleteSehnsucht (german) = longing; Heimweh = homesickness.
Okay, yeah, I did do grad school at Yale in the 80s, and yeah, you're never quite sane about signs after an experience like that.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous ess sounds ending in that zee. Oh. And the meaning, too, that I absorbed.
ReplyDeleteSehnsucht
ReplyDeleteLight from a perigee moon
floods the breasts of mourning
Across town, roofs pitch like a sea
of angled tildes, unmooring
What the Norfolk island pines hold
in their arms: not zero, nor nothing--
My upstairs window is often shaded: not
quite shut, not gaping wide with longing
On each side of the spine, fingers work
their deft queries, closing and opening
03 19 2011
Two lovely poems - thanks Dale and Luisa!
ReplyDeleteJust leave some straw on the floor and it's spun into gold in the morning :-)
ReplyDeleteHow much straw can I give you at one time, Dale? :)
ReplyDeleteHah. I know your name, Rumpelstiltskin!
ReplyDelete