"Yet as I lift up this / dull desert stone, the weight of it is full / of slower, longer thoughts than mind can have."
— Le Guin, Ursula (b. 1929)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Astoria
Publisher
Raven Studios
Date
2010
Metaphor
"Yet as I lift up this / dull desert stone, the weight of it is full / of slower, longer thoughts than mind can have."
Metaphor in Context
A thought to mind, so to the string
plucked, or touched, or bowed, the music is,
a wrinkling of the air as immaterial
and brief as sunlight glancing on a wave.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
Voice is as mortal as the word it says,
with little time to speak the thought, to tell
or sing the quick idea of those who live.
So brief the spoken word, the airy thing
in which are placed our deepest constancies,
though by its love or life may stand or fall,
and in it is the power to ruin or save.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
Rock has no tongue to speak or voice to sing,
mute, heavy matter. Yet as I lift up this
dull desert stone, the weight of it is full
of slower, longer thoughts than mind can have.
Be my mind, stone lying on my grave.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
The stars have long to listen. Be my song.
(p. 102)
plucked, or touched, or bowed, the music is,
a wrinkling of the air as immaterial
and brief as sunlight glancing on a wave.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
Voice is as mortal as the word it says,
with little time to speak the thought, to tell
or sing the quick idea of those who live.
So brief the spoken word, the airy thing
in which are placed our deepest constancies,
though by its love or life may stand or fall,
and in it is the power to ruin or save.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
Rock has no tongue to speak or voice to sing,
mute, heavy matter. Yet as I lift up this
dull desert stone, the weight of it is full
of slower, longer thoughts than mind can have.
Be my mind, stone lying on my grave.
The silence in these empty lands is long.
The stars have long to listen. Be my song.
(p. 102)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Julie Phillips, "Out of Bounds: The Unruly Imagination of Ursula K. Le Guin" The New Yorker (October 17, 2016).
Citation
Ursula K. Le Guin, Out Here: Poems and Images from Steens Mountain Country (Astoria: Raven Studios, 2010).
Date of Entry
10/13/2016
