April is Poetry Month

There is a children's choir in Carmina Burana and this means that in our evening rehearsals we've been privileged to enjoy not only cuteness but a round of new t-shirts.  It was while I stared at "FRESH" and "Departure Attractive," in rehearsal today that I started to think a little more deeply about the matter.  What if I could once again enjoy the pure beauty of a letter's shape, of a combination of letters, regardless of typeface, unhindered by their sound and meaning?   I am no longer so blissfully ignorant of English that I can imagine this ever happening again–I have left that garden forever.  The sound of "Fresh," will always have meaning in it;  I will never see "Departure Attractive" in such a pure way.  But there is another garden in which I might linger a little longer, and I started to think of what words I might put together from the Japanese language that I simply enjoy without thought, their sensory impression still much stronger than their semantic baggage.  Something like, "Genki denki hochikisu" comes to mind.  That would look like this 元気電気ホチキス (pretty cool, right?) and would mean "Healthy electricity stapler."  Not bad.  I think I may have found a new hobby, one even the beatniks can't beat.