Ashlyn Woods: The Nature of Words
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| Ashlyn Woods at night |
I wrote this poem whilst sitting up an old elm tree within Ashlyn Woods, Shingay, south Cambridgeshire. The three words are all ones that people I Love have taught me. These under-used adjectives describe three wonderful natural moments: things that stimluate our' senses - sound, sight and smell, respectively. It is in the nature of words to reach for the ineffable, but to never quite capture the wonder of lived experience... at least, not when one is a very fallible flâneur.
The Nature of Words
'Susurration' can be
heard
when the leaves
in the trees
rustle in the breeze
'Murmuration' can be
seen
when a rabble of rooks
rise up high
a spiral in the sky
'Petrichor' is
breathed
that smell of leafy green
in the wake of rain
fresh and clean
The Fallible Flâneur <*(((((><(
I consider that the English vocabulary to be such an expressive tool. I like the construction of the poem with the heard, seen and breathed highlighted as the meaning. I think that the adjectives susurration and murmuration also seem to convey their meaning when spoken. It's a pity that more and more words are falling away from English as they are no longer commonly used.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Adam. I really appreciate your appreciation and agree entirely about the need to dust down some neglected words and bring the back. Funnily enough, I have a very large facsimile of Samuel Johnson's original dictionary and was thinking today that I'll have a browse through it for inspiration. It has some amazing 'antique' words like, 'brabble' (to dispute) and 'conniptions' (sudden feeling of ill-feeling).
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