They are hitchhikers and stowaways from our past
that happened to come along for the ride with us
Such treasure! Better than cathedrals
You can keep your Mona Lisa – words need no security system
Just keep using.
They are nuggets of humanness
So irrepressible – you try telling a word to shut up –
Each is the perfect crystallisation of an idea:
ambivalence tantamount taonga
quizzical dank
They form around the germ of a notion:
disconcerting chirrup warp
Antarctica tundra whiff
Or a feeling:
huddle grit umbrage quail
ardent tendentious outrage bruise
What a gift for us all:
kerfuffle crumple musafir nostril consummate merry
Some get lost along the way –
Did you know that a ream used to mean the ripple made by the nose of a swimming otter?
That dimmity once meant twilight?
Or that a shippen was a shelter for cattle left open on one side?
Drop them one at a time into some pond into your mind
let them ripple out in welling concentricities
Where did they come from?
How did this
Come to express exactly that
So beautifully?
South Paw 