You can hear the bones humming

[sovay]

How did we know we were human? We made music and devoured our own. The juniper tree's roots run deep. I am waiting for the flute that, blown, cries out in the voice of an ancient child.

There is salt on Enceladus.

Comments

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

No, sister.

In the shadow of the broken cook-pots, you cannot hope.

[sovay]

In the shadow of the broken cook-pots, you cannot hope.

What does hope have to do with anything? The universe is as it is; imagining that anything we do here can negate or invalidate it is as solipsistic as assuming it was created for our pleasure in the first place.

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

Waiting is a kind of hope.

[sovay]

Waiting is a kind of hope.

Ah. I thought you were speaking of Enceladus.

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

No, I was merely responding poetically to the beauty of your post. Apologies if I caused any offense. The thought I might have horrified me because, although we have not met, just knowing that you are out there, passionately committed to your words, is a solace to me.

[sovay]

Apologies if I caused any offense.

No; don't worry.

[larryhammer]

That is most EXCELLENT news about Enceladus.

---L.

[sovay]

That is most EXCELLENT news about Enceladus.

It really is!

Call me Alph

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

This is a deep triad. Enceladus's salty trail to "watery underground caverns"; man's measures and pleasure domes; and what in man is measureless.

[sovay]

Enceladus's salty trail to "watery underground caverns"; man's measures and pleasure domes; and what in man is measureless.

I want to write it a poem, but I'm not sure I'm up to it: I think I might need to be a shaman and an astronomer from the future.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I am waiting for the flute that, blown, cries out in the voice of an ancient child.

It would be a lure; don't listen. It's too late for the owner of that voice.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

It would be a lure; don't listen. It's too late for the owner of that voice.

I think you have the right of it.

[sovay]

It's too late for the owner of that voice.

Who plays through it now?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting triad, this.

I'll have to see if I can finagle access to the full article from Nature.

[sovay]

I'll have to see if I can finagle access to the full article from Nature.

Argh. I forgot it might not be accessible without subscription. This is the article I first read.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you! But it's the piece about the flutes I wasn't able to get at. I'm sure I can get it, somehow, through NYU's library--I'm simply less accustomed to doing so for Nature than I am for archives like JSTOR and such.

I've read about the flutes in the usual media--AP and such through Yahoo. Very interesting.

[sovay]

But it's the piece about the flutes I wasn't able to get at.

Gah! I copied the wrong link. Here.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's an interesting piece--I'd not seen the bit about the replica having been tried out.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

You are poetry.

Nine

[sovay]

You are poetry.

Thank you. It still feels there's a constellation in there I should be able to approach, if I had any words left for it.

[seajules]

We eat what we are and so never leave the dead behind.

I wonder whose mourning marks that moon.

(Spouse has been reading to me passages from a book called Traditions of the Navy, first printing in 1942. His edition is from 1954, and was a gift from a crusty old sailor he met while serving a mission for our church in Stockton over a decade ago. There are poems and poems in there, the embrace of the sea that gave us fathom, and the ravens kept aboard by the Northmen for navigational purposes.)

[sovay]

We eat what we are and so never leave the dead behind.
I wonder whose mourning marks that moon.

Okay; you write that poem.

His edition is from 1954, and was a gift from a crusty old sailor he met while serving a mission for our church in Stockton over a decade ago. There are poems and poems in there, the embrace of the sea that gave us fathom, and the ravens kept aboard by the Northmen for navigational purposes.)

That sounds marvelous. I'm so glad you have it.

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

This is scary and beautiful. I love how you pulled these three articles together. Do you feel a poem stirring in there?

[sovay]

Do you feel a poem stirring in there?

Yes, but I don't know if I can write it . . . You should feel free to try.