metaphor

For the first time, I understood the ancients' need to find explanations for why things happen. It's a quintessential human imperative. Random is not emotionally satisfying. Therefore, lightning was the bolt from an angry god. Crop failure was punishment for failing to honor the gods with a fatted calf. The plague happened because you took the Lord's name in vain or coveted your neighbor's wife. Going to church regularly and praying could forestall illness. And on and on.

Metaphor isn't just decorative language. If it were, it wouldn't scare us so much. . . . Colorful language threatens some people, who associate it, I think, with a kind of eroticism (playing with language in public = playing with yourself), and with extra expense (having to sense or feel more). I don't share that opinion. Why reduce life to a monotone? Is that truer to the experience of being alive? I don't think so. It robs us of life's many textures. Language provides an abundance of words to keep us company on our travels. But we're losing words at a reckless pace, the national vocabulary is shrinking. Most Americans use only several hundred words or so. Frugality has its place, but not in the larder of language. We rely on words to help us detail how we feel, what we once felt, what we can feel. When the blood drains out of language, one's experience of life weakens and grows pale. It's not simply a dumbing down, but a numbing.

I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.

In poetry, the best way to say cuss words is to hide it behind metaphors.

[About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:]We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

As I turned to leave, I looked down. Beside my foot, a sprout of greenery was clawing its way through the pristine nothingness to begin anew. It was later that I realized my haven had sent me a message, and it had shown me that nothing is ever completely lost, unless you cease searching.

She was lost now, she'd been silenced- another dead branch on Cordova's warped tree.