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| Ellsworth Kelly |
Maybe in class I'll tell you about why this word is so important--or at least the story about how I came upon it. I'm wondering of each of you has a set of associations? I mean, yes, there's the literal meaning--but more, the way that meaning gets grounded in terms of experience... And how the word reflects that experience (the way Daniel's small painting reflected his experience of the room in Delhi...)
One hint: there's a church meaning that's quite specific--not one we'd all share, but illuminating nonetheless...
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Rain
Peter Everwine
Toward evening, as the light failed
and the pear tree at my window darkened,
I put down my book and stood at the open door,
the first raindrops gusting in the eaves,
a smell of wet clay in the wind.
Sixty years ago, lying beside my father,
half asleep, on a bed of pine boughs as rain
drummed against our tent, I heard
for the first time a loon’s sudden wail
drifting across that remote lake—
a loneliness like no other,
though what I heard as inconsolable
may have been only the sound of something
untamed and nameless
singing itself to the wilderness around it
and to us until we slept. And thinking of my father
and of good companions gone
into oblivion, I heard the steady sound of rain
and the soft lapping of water, and did not know
whether it was grief or joy or something other
that surged against my heart
and held me listening there so long and late.
