~Jane Hadfield (from 'Byssus', 2014)
Conversation
À propos of lichen ...
'Like those nameless ones
who kept painting, shaping, engraving,
unseen, unread, unremembered.'
—Jane Hirshfield
(from 'For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen', in 'Come, Thief', 2011)
'An alphabet moves in the silence,
printing its drowned incunabula
on the naked flank of the beaches.'
—Pablo Neruda (translated by Ben Belitt)
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