Shell     

              She's a wise child, and a wise child
              knows its own etymology.

              We gave her the name "Katherine,"
              but she gave herself the name "Tansywillow."

              Her first word,
              which we also gave her,
              was SHELL,
              from the gas station on the corner

              with its red letters on a stylized
              yellow scallop-shape
              on a red field,

              but what she meant by it was "rotate,"
              which is what it did,
              on a tall pole.

              When she told me this I asked her
              (thinking how a tree's branches
              mirror its roots)

              if the word "rotate" still had elements
              of redness and yellowness for her,
              of scallop-shellness,

              of top-of-a-tall-poleness,
              and she said, "Now that you mention it."

              But by that time she was making her living
              doing computer animation,
              so it was tempting to draw conclusions

              (thinking how the reach of a concept
              mirrors the breadth of its particulars) --

              perhaps too tempting.
              Perhaps that was just too
              elaborate a blossom
              to rest on so slim a stem.


              Bob Brooks


     
              *         *          *
         
    
              about the poem:

              "The story of 'Shell' is in the poem, but what most impressed me 
              was the way that story suggested how truly organic the secret life 
              of words must often be."



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