Latent History

Take the last train out to the highest mount

Remain three days

Eat lichen and shrike eggs

Follow the flocks through the gorge of grey rocks

Trace to the source; melodize with the spring

Then you will receive word -

Latent history foretold

Abide ten thousand years til next Spring

Larksong -- too high, almost, to be heard;

Swallows swinging low over dolomite lake

And diving into cathedraline crevices

Hear the frozen mountains' tongues proclaim 

your name in the chatter of new-thawn streams 

Moraine-enciphered rumors dispelled

शृणु - Attend! La baguette du dôme céleste 

touche le bol doré terrestre!

 

Last Trip

It was a pretty successful dinner party. He had brought up several different kinds of wine from the fridge in the basement: A couple different reds, some whites, a bottle of something fizzy, and a split of sauterne. And some of the guests brought various bottles of wine as well. In the end, people pretty much just stuck with reds. After everyone was gone, and he was cleaning up, he made several trips back down to the basement with all the bottles of leftover wine. On the last trip down the basement stairs, he lost his footing –– maybe it was too much wine –– and he stumbled, and several bottles of wine broke, and some shards of glass lacerated his arms, and he bled profusely, and the wine and blood commingled in his hair as he died.

Watch Out! John is Loose in the Kitchen

Here's what happens when I cook: 

I put too much butter in the pan
and heat it until the detectors go off ...

    I dice the onion and peppers far too small ...

        I cook the pasta until it slumps into mush ...

            I sauté the veggies until they're nearly burnt ...

                I use too much cumin, thyme, and paprika ...

                    I put too much salt, and too much pepper ...

Then I boil it all

until it's tasteless 

and satisfies no one.

Taimane

Taimane is the name of a famous 'ukulele artist of (mixed) Samoan descent. Her web page states that taimane "translates to diamond from Samoan" (and the Wikipedia page repeats this). I got to wondering: Is this really a Samoan word?  Isn't it likely to be a loanword from English?

First, I note that no Wikipedia nor Wiktionary for any of the Polynesian languages have any entries for diamond - for whatever that's worth.  As a double-check, I also tried searching the Samoan and Maori Wikipedias and Wiktionaries for "taimana" and variants thereof, with no hits.

Google translate certainly maps "diamond" to "taimane" for Samoan, "taimana" for Maori, and "daimana" for Hawaiian. Tahitian uses simply "diamond". 

So if this word is borrowed from English, we should be able to establish that it is of recent provenance. 

Helpfully, there is a Samoan language Bible on Archive.org. It was published in 1887. 

BibleGateway doesn't have a Samoan version, but does have a Maori version. (Unfortunately, there is no information about it, including publication date.)

The word "diamond" does not occur often in the Bible.  A couple places are:

Jeremiah 17:1(a):

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond ...

 Ezekiel 28:13(b):

... the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle ...

These are as found in the King James Version (KJV).  The Revised Standard Version (RSV) has "diamond" in the first passage, but "chrysolite" in the second. Young's Literal Translation (YLT) is similar to the KJV: it likewise has "diamond", but has "ruby" in place of "sardius".

Here are the corresponding phrases in the (modern?) Maori version:

Jeremiah 17:1(a):

Kua oti te hara o Hura te tuhituhi ki te pene rino, ki te mata hoki o te taimana ...

Ezekiel 28:13(b):

... ko te harariu, ko te topaha, ko te taimana, ko te perira, ko te onika, ko te hahapa, ko te hapaira, ko te emerara, ko te kapakara ...

Clearly "taimana" is the word which the translator used for "diamond".

Now what about the 1887 Samoan translation?

Jeremiah 17:1(a):

Ua tusia le agasala a Iuta i le peni uamea ma le mata o le samira ...

Google translates this to:

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a samarium ...

Ezekiel 28:13(b):

... o le salikea, ma le topasi, ma le ialoma, ma le tasesa, ma le soama, ma le iasepi, ma le safaira, ma le nofeka, ma le pereketa ...

Google translates this to:

... the sardius, the topaz, the jasper, the onyx, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the onyx, and the beryl ...

Google seems to struggle with some of those words, punting, in several cases, to "beryl" and "onyx". 

Even so, none of the words in the original even remotely resemble "taimane".

Therefore, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that "taimana" was introduced into Maori and certain other Polynesian languages, including Samoan, in the modern period.

 

 

I Told Myself

I didn't love her
It wasn't love
I don't believe in love
It was merely a deep admiration, and a bit of envy

Yes, those were the truths I told myself
To make myself believe
But I never could believe
Those outrageous lies.

she makes me want to lay down arms

she makes me want to lay down arms
that all the wars have been fought, and won
that it is time to turn tilth the blood and bones 
of all the fallen yesterdays

so, with mine own sweat my tree to nourish
and it thereby to diversify, to edify
to cultivate a towering silver city
so ageless golden civilizations to flourish

Metal Touch Space

I found this really cool music track named "Touch Space", by an outfit called Test Shot Starfish. You can hear it on YouTube. It includes some samples of a man speaking. The words are intriguing, so I went searching for the source(s). As presented in the song, the prose seems to be in three parts:

Part 1:

Does the blood move in your hand?
Does your hand move to touch metal?
Does that metal move to touch space?
Do wild thoughts of travel and migration move behind your flesh?
They do.

Part 2:

A billion years ago
when we came out of the sea of this earth
And we formed a spine for ourselves
And we reared ourselves up upon this land
And we moved unto the land
And we lived in caves, and were terrified
Then we lived in trees, and were afraid
And we finally formed cities against the night
[Now we] are daring to do the great thing
And we're going into space
And we're going to live forever

Part 3:

You are part of a long effort of the universe to understand itself
This blind thing turning in its sleep
You're part of that blindness coming awake
Every single one of you is a cell of this thing struggling to stay alive
Dying every day, rebirthing itself every night
And that's what space travel is all about

It turns out that all of the text is by Ray Bradbury, the famous science fiction author and poet. In fact, he said these things at public speaking engagements, where he was recorded. I think - though I'm not sure - that the voice we hear in the song is actually Bradbury's, from the recordings.

The words in Part 1 were spoken during a symposium called Why Man Explores, held at the California Institute of Technology on July 2, 1976, and sponsored by NASA. The full transcript of the symposium is available at Google Books: Why Man Explores. He says he's quoting from a poem he had written before. It was part of an ongoing project he worked on for decades, ultimately entitled Leviathan '99, the stated goal of which was to bring Moby-Dick into the space age.

Parts 2 and 3 come from one source: a lecture he gave named Space Exploration as The Theology for Our Time. I haven't found the full transcript of this lecture, but you can hear the recording on YouTube: Space Exploration as The Theology for Our Time. Part 2 begins at 33:11, and Part 3 at 35:32.