Thursday, December 20, 2007

Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith

                                   “…and this word
      bumping around in the landscape…”
                                            ----Judith Barrington

But it’s a soft word, Judith!
If you said a word for its softness,
you might say billowy,
or valley floor, or lesbian.
If you made up an unbumpy sound,
you might come out with ahloovay,
or elyamoor, or lesbian.
The ell, the zz, the buh, the nn –-
how could you make a kinder noise?
Or say The Isle of Lesbos:
soft hills above a purple sea,
a wind sound, a shell murmur,
even to one who inhabits
one of the right-angled landscapes.
Exile is also a soft word.

"For Judith," copyright (c) 1993 by Ursula K. LeGuin; first appeared in UrbanUS; from GOING OUT WITH PEACOCKS And Other Poems; used by permission of the author and the author's agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.


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