Fleur-de-Lys

Fleur-de-Lys

Wither, Lily slim and white;   softly cede each velvet part.

Sing, Wind, that she was straight and tall.

With rainfall swell and fill,  stem-circling green Pool.

Roll in around her, Night,  aghast and whispering and cool.

Within her faultless heart  creep, armored Animals and small.

And last, O Pool! -  on your breast whose strength is slight,     awhile bear still        the spear she must let fall.

PRAYER OF SOUL-WOUNDED BLOGGERS

Many thanks, O God, for thy Holy Ones

From vanity, vanity, and degraded vanity, we turn to wholeness, we turn to stainlessness with vast and gusty sighs of relief

Ah, forgive us, Sweetest, that we have not relieved by sweetness souls miserably devouring their own dank and sour miseries in our helpless sight

But we thank thee and yet again we thank thee that we may turn we thank thee from the grievous vision may turn to gaze

on thy backward-revolving sunrise: Dawn returning from the west mercifully refusing night to unhappy night-cravers

Ah, thanks and thanks yet again, our God, God our own, many thanks still yet again for thy Holy Ones, O God.

As a publisher, I've had to make a minor study of book covers. This is just gorgeous, and I think it's interesting the designer saw very little need for white space (red space?)

My daughter is one of these irrepressibles.

"I don't care if you taste my spittocks." (We're trading the same wooden flute back and forth so I can teach her "Hanging Tree.") "I just don't want to taste your spittocks."

"Spittle," I correct her, laughing.

"Spittle-waxens," she goes on, not even pausing. "I don't want to taste your spittle-waxens."

Neither do I, Kiddo, but for some reason the Lord God Almighty saw fit to outfit us with plentiful spittle-waxens and only enough money for one F-flute.

How Words Are Dropped from the Dictionary

merriam-webster.com

Episode 61: How Words Are Dropped from the Dictionary

Episode 61: How Words Are Dropped from the Dictionary

Some interesting words they discuss:

Plantsman (a gardener who's earned his stripes, so to speak)

Gooseberry (an indulgent chaperone; used in Sherlock Holmes.)

Snallygaster (a shrewd unprincipled person; this was taken out and then put back in because people began to use it again.)

Emporte, "irritated, beyond self possession" (apparently in French it just means 'taken' or "carried away.") So I definitely want to start using this one. I'm taken, I'm absolutely taken. (Not "taken with.") That way I don't have to say, "I can't with," because whenever I hear someone say, "I can't with," I become absolutely emporte with revulsion.

By the way, if language followed evolutionary principles, words that drop out of circulation wouldn't pop back in; but they often do. We are in charge of currency.

Day dress, 1804-06

From Cora Ginsburg (auctioned 1999)