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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.