Brain Food #765
Unfinished business
Thoughts of the day
Hello friends. It has been a while, and this is not yet a formal return, but a short greeting during this interlude and act of recreation that Brain Food is undergoing.
In The Botticellian Trees, William Carlos Williams wrote, “In summer, the song sings itself,” alluding to the effortlessness of the season, but also to the fact that sometimes we just need to sit back and listen.
The poem ends with a dash, like a diver suspended in mid-air, but it doesn’t necessarily leave us wanting for more. Even if something does not develop or end as expected, it can still be enjoyed. And, a few times a year, it might just be acceptable for some business to remain unfinished.
The Botticellian Trees
by William Carlos Williams
The alphabet of
the trees
is fading in the
song of the leaves
the crossing
bars of the thin
letters that spelled
winter
and the cold
have been illumined
with
pointed green
by the rain and sun
the strict simple
principles of
straight branches
are being modified
by pinched out
ifs of color, devout
conditions
the smiles of love
. . . . . . . .
until the stript
sentences
move as a woman’s
limbs under cloth
and praise from secrecy
quick with desire
love’s ascendancy
in summer–
In summer the song
sings itself
above the muffled words–
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