Etymology    
     
I like the words that show their working parts Take forgiving you. It seemed the thing
like dioramas of the human heart. I could not do. Forgiefan proved no help at all
 
Grief, for example, and ghabh, a strangled thing like choking on your tears,
from the Latin gravare, to burden, but farther back, fargeban: to give away.
 
from gravis, heavy, That's when I knew I could not give it up.
and all the lovely words that stem from this: I loved the little corpse we'd made.
 
gravid and gravity and grave.   Gravid and gravity and grave:
Whatever keeps us bound to earth is curious and useful.   I like the words that show how time's been spent,
   
When I'm bereft of history, I look   what's left when nothing's left to give away.
inside the heavy book for order and instruction.   In the end it's silence that seems most like our consent.

Artwork:Tracey Anderson / Collaborative Statements