with waves
ami / 2025'o divine air breezes on swift bird-wings,
ye river fountains, and of ocean-waves
the multitudinous laughter mother earth!'
-aeschylus - prometheus bound
'tis the deep music of the rolling world
kindling within the strings of the waved air
æolian modulations.'
-percy bysshe shelley - prometheus unbound
'at the source of the longest river
the voice of the hidden waterfall
and the children in the apple-tree
not known, because not looked for
but heard, half-heard, in the stillness
between two waves of the sea.'
-ts eliot - four quartets
asunder
ami / 2021'into a position apart, separate, into separate parts,' mid-12c., contraction of old english on sundran (see a- & sunder). middle english for 'distinguish, tell apart.'
'a-' commonly represents 'on, in, into,' as in alive, above, asleep, aback, abroad, afoot, ashore, ahead, abed, aside. intensive 'a-,' originally 'ar-' (cognate with german er- and probably implying originally 'motion away from'), as in abide, arise, awake, ashamed, marking a verb as momentary, a single event. in romanic languages, 'a-' often represents reduced forms of latin 'ad-' 'to, toward; for,' or 'ab-' 'from, away, off.'sundrian, syndrian, or, 'to sunder, separate, divide,' from sundor 'separately, apart,' from proto-germanic sunder (source also of old norse sundr, old frisian sunder, old high german suntar 'aside, apart;' german sondern 'to separate'), from PIE root sen(e)- 'apart, separated' (source also of sanskrit sanutar 'away, aside,' avestan hanare 'without,' greek ater 'without,' latin sine 'without,' old church slavonic svene 'without,' old irish sain 'different').
'the beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.'
-virginia woolf
still life
ami / 2020you left in october. we've been walking ever since.
caught between brief awakenings, one step after another.
the wind picked up here / here / here / / / /
our blinding
ami / 2019these are the dreams of the spar spectra.
varying self, study of figure in a landscape.
constructed with the birefringence of iceland spar
and ways of being in a traumatic climatic form.
inspired by a sign on rib mountain describing 'ancient ripple marks' made from the sands of the precambrian sea. on the sign, sections including time spans of
"around the edges of his form, a strange magenta and green aura had begun to flicker, as if from a source somewhere behind him, growing more intense as he himself faded from view, until seconds later nothing was left but a kind of stain in the air where he had been, a warping of the light as through ancient window-glass."
- thomas pynchon, against the day
in case things go poorly
ami / 2018reel/reeled/reeling/reels (rēl)
-to cause to stagger or recoil.-to waver; to recoil or draw away from.
-of material things: to shake, rock, or swing violently; to totter, tremble.
-of an object or image: to have, or seem to have, a rapid quivering motion; to shimmer.
-of a person, group, etc.: to be emotionally or psychologically shaken by an event, experience, etc.; to feel disorientated, bewildered, overwhelmed, or intoxicated as a result of an occurrence, a powerful emotion, carrying a heavy weight, etc.
"yet still i gasp'd and reel'd with dread.
and ever, when the dream of night
renews the phantom to my sight,
cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs."
- s.t. coleridge, ode on the departing year, vi. / 1796
