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Aquiver is the big winner
of the web-wide
most beautiful words contest,
which is disappointing
and suspicious. (Who was polled,
a confab of romance writers?)
So much better: abed, astride…aghast.
Also popular is mellifluous,
all chiffon and cheap perfume.
A close third: ineffable,
hardly better, just more groomed.
But further exploration
produces limerence:
the state of being
infatuated with another.
(I lived in Limerence
in my early twenties–
stunning landscape–
but I couldn’t take the winters.)
Venturing beyond
the borders of English
brings other treasures,
like hiraethe
which, if you’re Welsh,
is pronounced “hair-eyeth”
and translates, roughly,
into homesickness for a home
you can’t return to.
I would like to name a child Hiraeth,
after my mother.
The French have a word
for the bittersweet feeling
of having arrived
in the future and seeing
how things turn
out, without being able
to tell your past self: énouement.
(Not to be confused
with dénouement, that tidy final act
when all is resolved.)
I currently reside
on a narrow coastline,
somewhere between
Émou and Démou on the map
of what I continue
to refer to as my middle age,
though I’ve got to be
well past the middle
of this little play.
Appetite, though diminished,
has become more keen;
I’ve developed a taste
for wabi-sabi,
that humble Japanese morsel
of imperfection
and impermanence.
Along the wrack line
of my disappearing coast
lie water-worn remains
of other lives and ages,
sanded spirals and smooth
stones fit for pockets
or empty palms.
Here, I’m never
lost: the vanishing point
is always right or left.