Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 6 Number 2, August 2005

Special Issue: Literary Universals

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Seed

 

by

 

Gilbert Wesley Purdy

 

  

 

It’s strangely simple, really.  A-B-C:

arranged and rearranged, the combinations

are nearly infinite.  A-C-G-T

translates into a world of iterations

repeated until each line is memorized:

the single cell, then grass, then flower-song.

Still other prosodies are learned, new rhymes:

the fin, the hand, the brain, the tongue, the tongue.

The sentence of the past runs through the text,

soon albumen to newer metaphors,

in pericarps, each letter carefully

in place, appearing patiently at rest,

curled-up to flourish into song once more

should soil and circumstance both favor seed.