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< title > Zk | Seasons - Meditations on Dwale< / title >
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< h1 > Zk | Seasons - Meditations on Dwale< / h1 >
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< p > < a href = "notes.html" > Notes< / a > < / p >
< blockquote >
< p > As such, every reading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act of translation: translation into the reader’ s intellectual and emotional life. As no individual reader remains the same, each reading becomes a different — not merely another — reading. The same poem cannot be read twice.< / p >
< p > [… ] the poem continues in a state of restless change. (Weinberger, pg. 46)< / p >
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< / blockquote >
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< p > When I studied music, back in university, back as I was starting to get into software engineering, I found the dichotomy surrounding repeatability between these two subjects self-evident. There is a special curse for software bugs that are not easily repeated: Heisenbugs< sup id = "fnref:heisenbugs" > < a class = "footnote-ref" href = "#fn:heisenbugs" > 1< / a > < / sup > . On the other hand, though, there < em > is< / em > no way to ever perform the same song twice, even for the same singers, the same instrumentalists, the same conductors. Even with the same audience, that time any time must perforce pass in so time-bound an art means that those who hear the song < / p >
< h2 id = "spring" > Spring< / h2 >
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< div class = "verse" > The seasonal storms have poured upon the grassy flat,
The leafless stalks abound like thirsty mouths.
Puddles form and soon are swarmed with little fish,
And all the arid life has fled despair.
And here, wrapped in rain, lies the oldest soul,
The changes wrack his bones with painful cold.
His skin is like the sky at night, as many scars
Have marked his hide as there are glinting stars.
At once he feels his lungs become bereft of breath,
His daughter nudges him, to no effect.
She walks away rememb’ ring days they stalked the plains,
Within her womb there grows a golden bloom.< / div >
< p > (Dwale, pg. 26)< / p >
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< h2 id = "summer" > Summer< / h2 >
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< div class = "verse" > Summer, season of hot insomnia,
That much never seems to change at all.
Laying awake in the red desert night,
I shape forest from shade and wait for fall.
Ten years now gone, and who thought I would miss
Cricket songs, cicadas and katydids?
Then I’ d gladly have grabbed a big hammer,
Smashed them flat as Pinocchio’ s conscience.
Testing palisades of clocks and yardsticks,
No advent waits for the restive dreamer.
I bandage my tattered, bitten left hand
And shed the smoke rings on my cloven finger.< / div >
< p > (Dwale, pg. 8)< / p >
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< h2 id = "autumn" > Autumn< / h2 >
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< p > < em > Face down in the leaves< / em > < / p >
< div class = "verse" > We crawl through moist humus like millipedes,
Feasting on dirt and dead, crumbling leaves
While striped skies cycle through violet hues,
While time’ s kisses take the shape of a bruise.
Endeavors wear the warmer years away,
Reduced at last to heaven’ s dormant clay.
Alive, I lick brambles until my tongue
Tears, despairing ever being so young.
I think of you. I don’ t smile when I do.
A moment more and then the day is gone,
In evening grey, we mourn the vanished dawn,
And so on, maybe waiting for someone
To come drag us back to where we belong.
In dreams we interred, with your pure throat bare,
I know your breath, your jasmine-scented air.
Alive, a god to mites and mud-daubers.
The harvestmen scuttle and bob onwards.< / div >
< p > (Dwale, pg. 9)< / p >
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< h2 id = "winter" > Winter< / h2 >
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< p > < em > Dirt Garden< / em > < / p >
< div class = "verse" > My garden of foxtails and milk-thistle,
Alive and wild, more so than tended rows
In growth, has died. I killed them a little,
The crab-grass clumps, Datura and nettle.
“ Time and time, I commit these small murders,
To whose benefit?” I ask why and wonder,
The scent of sap on scuffed and bloody hands.
If I indwelt some luring scrap of land
Far from here, secluded, my own to call,
I would welcome these same weeds, one and all,
To plant their roots in my warm, earthen roof,
Just they and I, with no need of reproof,
And thank the thorns for making a hale fence,
The compost for being my winter blanket.< / div >
< p > (Dwale, pg. 5)< / p >
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< h2 id = "citations" > Citations< / h2 >
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< div class = "codehilite" > < pre > < span > < / span > < code > < span class = "nv" > @book< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > dwale< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > place< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Manvel< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > TX< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > title< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Face< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Down< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "ow" > in< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > the< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Leaves< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > publisher< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Weasel< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Press< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > author< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Dwale< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "nf" > year< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "mi" > 2019< / span > < span class = "err" > }}< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span >
< span class = "nv" > @book< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > weinberger_paz_2016< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > place< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "k" > New< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > York< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > NY< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > title< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Nineteen< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > ways< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "k" > of< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > looking< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "k" > at< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Wang< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "nl" > Wei< / span > < span class = "p" > :< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "p" > (< / span > < span class = "k" > with< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > more< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > ways< / span > < span class = "p" > )< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > publisher< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "k" > New< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Directions< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Paperbook< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > author< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "n" > Weinberger< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Eliot< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "ow" > and< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Paz< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "n" > Octavio< / span > < span class = "err" > }< / span > < span class = "p" > ,< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span > < span class = "nf" > year< / span > < span class = "o" > =< / span > < span class = "err" > {< / span > < span class = "mi" > 2016< / span > < span class = "err" > }}< / span > < span class = "w" > < / span >
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< h2 id = "notes" > Notes< / h2 >
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< p > From the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which, glibly, states that observation influences measurements. A bug that you cannot reproduce when you are watching simply must share some of these attributes, but they never do.  < a class = "footnote-backref" href = "#fnref:heisenbugs" title = "Jump back to footnote 1 in the text" > ↩ < / a > < / p >
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< p > Page generated on 2021-02-09< / p >
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