crackling
After lunch we emerge from the sukkah to find that the day has brightened, the trees sketching flame onto mild blue skies.
hospitable
In the main room of their apartment the light will be on all day and all night. The walls are pale and bright, and after the food is cleared away games are laid out on the table. Desserts make the rounds, and I get into an intense conversation that lasts until the early morning hours.
somewhere
It's a quiet street for the most part, but then a car will cut through the dark with its headlights, or a bike will whirr by, and down the block I'll hear one half of a cellphone conversation. Everyone moves with a destination in mind; there are no meanderers just taking in the trees and the muted street lamps. I wonder where they're going. One woman swings a grocery bag between limp fingers and lets herself into a house. She disappears, and the door clicks shut behind her.
strata
Our conversation is a series of cloud patterns: dense and concentrated sometimes, at other times gapping or thinning, spilling sunlight.
tantalizing
A squirrel steals into the sukkah, where an unattended backpack calls to it. Maybe there's food inside, a sandwich half-eaten or a cookie from the cafeteria. The squirrel worries the zipper on one of the smaller pockets before climbing on top of the backpack and nuzzling against the folds and straps.
vigorous
My first glimpse of the holiday evening festivities: people bobbing up and down before a lighted window. As I come closer to the building, I hear a faint roar of singing and stomping.
wide-eyed
Three women are at the center of the dancing circle. Two are holding Torah scrolls, and one is holding a young child. The child has stuck her thumb in her mouth and is staring wide-eyed at the women whirling around her.
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Week in Seven Words #50
conflagration
It takes me a few seconds to register that the sky is full of smoke, a great expanding cloud that thins out with distance, mixing into the mild peach sunset. As I get closer, I see large flames several blocks away, trembling insanely, tall as a house. Later on the news gets out - an apartment building destroyed in a five-alarm fire, thankfully no one killed or hurt. There are however over a hundred people who lost their homes.
imparted
The first time I arrive at the building complex, someone walks me through the corridors, shows me how they're interconnected and which staircases I should use to get to the third floor. The next day as I arrive, someone asks me for directions, and it's my turn to be the helpful guide.
reticent
She wishes I would confide in her more, but there are reasons I don't. I tell her little things, here and there, some offerings of opinion and thought, occasionally a deep feeling, but nothing that would make me too vulnerable.
roughhew
He doesn't seem comfortable with public speaking. This is hardly his first time in front of a crowd, and he does just fine, but there's only so much of himself that he can master - he can't help the flushed cheeks, the hands that tremble slightly, the voice that stops and starts.
slurry
Gray brown slush, messing over everything, as if the sidewalk has spit up and forgotten to pat its mouth clean.
tenacity
I don't want to be resigned, to walk a rut because that's the most comfortable way. I say this not because I'm one hundred percent certain I won't betray myself, only because I hope I won't, and I'll work hard not to. There are things I can't compromise on and give up on, not without a sense of crushing sadness.
tracery
I love how the trees are outlined by snow, a crisp network of branches. Each bare limb is traced in white, sharp and elegant.
It takes me a few seconds to register that the sky is full of smoke, a great expanding cloud that thins out with distance, mixing into the mild peach sunset. As I get closer, I see large flames several blocks away, trembling insanely, tall as a house. Later on the news gets out - an apartment building destroyed in a five-alarm fire, thankfully no one killed or hurt. There are however over a hundred people who lost their homes.
imparted
The first time I arrive at the building complex, someone walks me through the corridors, shows me how they're interconnected and which staircases I should use to get to the third floor. The next day as I arrive, someone asks me for directions, and it's my turn to be the helpful guide.
reticent
She wishes I would confide in her more, but there are reasons I don't. I tell her little things, here and there, some offerings of opinion and thought, occasionally a deep feeling, but nothing that would make me too vulnerable.
roughhew
He doesn't seem comfortable with public speaking. This is hardly his first time in front of a crowd, and he does just fine, but there's only so much of himself that he can master - he can't help the flushed cheeks, the hands that tremble slightly, the voice that stops and starts.
slurry
Gray brown slush, messing over everything, as if the sidewalk has spit up and forgotten to pat its mouth clean.
tenacity
I don't want to be resigned, to walk a rut because that's the most comfortable way. I say this not because I'm one hundred percent certain I won't betray myself, only because I hope I won't, and I'll work hard not to. There are things I can't compromise on and give up on, not without a sense of crushing sadness.
tracery
I love how the trees are outlined by snow, a crisp network of branches. Each bare limb is traced in white, sharp and elegant.
Monday, November 23, 2009
While searching for a hearth...
...I found Robert Morgan's "Hearth".
I'd started out with the intention of posting photos of fireplaces - of furniture pressed close around, armchairs and rocking chairs, chestnut and oak, brick and dark wood mantels, the flames warm and coaxing.
Instead I found this poem. A chimney standing alone in a field, the only part of the house standing. And though no one's using this chimney there are still fires to be found in it, although in different forms, like this one:
Wonderful use of repetition, lovely precise language; the poet sought out beauty and warmth, found it in a solitary chimney - the kind of place that kindles the imagination of poets passing by.
I'd started out with the intention of posting photos of fireplaces - of furniture pressed close around, armchairs and rocking chairs, chestnut and oak, brick and dark wood mantels, the flames warm and coaxing.
Instead I found this poem. A chimney standing alone in a field, the only part of the house standing. And though no one's using this chimney there are still fires to be found in it, although in different forms, like this one:
And bees have found a clover there
bending in the dance of rooted things
where the honey of flames was.
Wonderful use of repetition, lovely precise language; the poet sought out beauty and warmth, found it in a solitary chimney - the kind of place that kindles the imagination of poets passing by.
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