In a Language without a Voice

“Linguists say that language comes after music
and we sang nonsense syllables

before we invented a rational speech
to order our days.”

~ Jim Harrison

Hear Out, Notice RestDaron LarsonMay 11, 2019Jim Harrison, poetry, horses, nature, language, uncertainty, understanding, communication, silenceComment

Until The Sound Ceases to Convey Any Idea

"Linguistic repetition, you learn from an early age, can give form or take it away, because it forces a confrontation with the malleability of language and the world we build with it, build upon it."

~ Ben Lerner

Hear Out, Hear In, ClarityDaron LarsonDecember 3, 2017Ben Lerner, poetry, language, uncertainty, learning, growing up, mysteryComment

Change of Scenery

Birds lack the words to get tangled up in the whys.

Daron LarsonMay 12, 2017poetry, religion, spirituality, nature, freedom, liberation, language, changeComment

Living with Spaciousness

"After you read a poem just knowing you can hold it, you can be in that space of the poem. And it can hold you in its space."

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Daron LarsonAugust 6, 2016yutori, space, Japan, Japanese, language, definition, On Being, poetry, poets, Naomi Shihab NyeComment

When There Are No Words

The human voice can sing a vowel to break your heart.

Hear Out, Feel In, Notice RestDaron LarsonDecember 9, 2015Joseph Addison, Thomas Lux, music, language, poetry, singingComment

How the Earth Sees Us

How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name.

In the word, the earth breaks silence. It has waited a long time for the word. Concealed beneath familiarity and silence, the earth holds back and it never occurs to us to wonder how the earth sees us. Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there?

~ John O'Donohue

Our Desire to Transcend Isolation

"Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from."

Catch Yourself Absorbed

When you catch yourself absorbed by some immediate aspect of your environment, try to yield to the observation fully for a few seconds.

Real Words

"If a community of speakers is using a word and knows what it means, it's real. That word might be slangy, that word might be informal, that word might be a word that you think is illogical or unnecessary, but that word that we're using, that word is real."

~ Anne Curzan

Daron LarsonOctober 21, 2014Anne Curzan, language, change, meaning, impermanence, TED, understanding, society, words, Andrew BirdComment

The Residue of Fear

"I spent so much of my life telling people the things they wanted to hear instead of the things they needed to, told myself I wasn't meant to be anyone's conscience because I still had to figure out being my own, so sometimes I just wouldn't say anything, appeasing ignorance with my silence." ~ Clint Smith