I Learned A Word
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Billows And Mist | Oil on Linen | 18 x 24 | SOLD
I have been reading Andrew Peterson’s new book, Adorning the Dark, and in so doing, I learned a new word.
Limn.
Do you know this word?
Me neither. I have never stumbled upon it in my many years of loving words.
It means, “to depict or describe in painting or words.”
So there you have it. All this time I’ve been “limning” unawares.
One other beautiful share from the book, the poetry of Richard Wilbur. He’s been limning all right.
Here is “The Writer.” I do care for it and I hope it sends you to a beautiful place.
***
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed
with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-
keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years
ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash.
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.
***
This is so meaningful as a painter and a word lover and a musician. I can just relate. I hope you can, too.
Sending you off with a hearty wish for the best Christmas ever. May the Prince of Peace be the centerpiece of the celebration. Enjoy HIM and your time and your people.
—Beth
Soli Deo Gloria