the book of lists (a preview)

the meadow behind my house, by kat ziegler

The voice of forest water in the night, a woman's laughter in the dark, the clean, hard rattle of raked gravel, the cricketing stitch of midday in hot meadows, the delicate web of children's voices in bright air - these things will never change. The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence of morning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of young boughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, the thorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry - these things will always be the same.

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again, 1940

Still less can the sculptor depict the love-light in a person's eyes, with their black or blue colouring; the colour of blond hair; the gleam of weapons;  the darkness of night; a tempest at sea; thunder and lightning; a city in conflagration; or the break of rosy dawn with its rays of gold and red. 

Baldassarre Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 1528 

It is the hour of the mallow and the poppy, of jasmine and flowering gorse, of the thistle and the passion flower, of tiny strawberries starring the moss at the foot of the pine trees, of the violet and the rambling rose, of acacia and eucalyptus honeying the air. In our meadow we also have: a number of small grey foxes, hedgehogs curling in the brambles, the lizard and the grass snake, a flock of shrieking parrots, their long emerald tails slicing through the air, and my dog Charlie, buried under a pomegranate tree.

girlontape, 2013