Lists and Syntax

There is a sequence of three words captured in one line in a poem ("July") by George Miller that are evocative all on their own

mud growth sanctuary

In recollection they seem to irrupt but in context they flow from a description of a forest

O heat trees silence lush
mud growth sanctuary

Their position at the end of a two line stanza makes them dangle in the imagination; a question arises at to just how mud leads to growth and how that provides sanctuary. There is here an enigma. The mystery of how linkages are forged is expressed in a poem ("The World as Language") later in the collection (Sancho). Miller writes

Each thing a word awaiting syntax

There the "elastic Listener" is likened to the Divine. But I like to shift to an ecstatic reader who completes the process initiated by the elastic listener whereby

And words not things
but meshings of relation
patterns of concern

mud growth sanctuary: meshings patterns concerns

And so for day 1678
18.07.2011