Showing posts with label Charles burchfield poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles burchfield poem. Show all posts

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”