Thursday, March 28, 2024

Song of the Telegraph (Charles Burchfield), Sonnet #623














I’ve always seen the world as quivering,

Motes in my eyes, random as Brownian

Motion, more than sight, but delivering

What has been awaited for an eon.

Even rocks I find on Michigan shores,

Which crowd memorabilia on my desk,

Tremble in the dimness the light abhors.

(Rocks have too many answers, so don’t ask.)

Living things are a different matter:

Trees, cats and birds shudder even when still,

And when they move they pretend to shatter

Within a blinked tear that’s started to rill.

What’s not dead is my electricity,

Motion grounding my own haecceity.


Note: haecceity (hakˈsēədē/) means “the property of being a unique and individual thing”

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