Shine

Robert Haas ends "Songs to Survive the Summer" which itself ends Praise with the following set of verses:

all things lustered
by the steady thoughtlessness
of human use.

Through the polish of use the objects in our daily lives develop a patina. Repetition adds a depth and a charm to the objects.

The process can also apply to the tales we tell and the lines of poetry we read. In the re-telling and the re-reading the objects not only furnish our minds but also acquire a lustre. Hass himself might include in "all things lustered" the passages in his poem about the making of onion soup (simply sumptuous from the cutting of the onions to the ladling and eating) or those about the grandfather-carved wooden nickel.

Of course there is a place in human experience for the enjoyment of the fresh and the new — the before-patina effects.

And so for day 671
14.10.2008