To refresh language, one has to go to the place where it was new, exciting. And where else is the Word more primodal than in lullabies. So that explains why I am now googling like crazy to find and go back to those first sounds and first songs, other than just for the hell of it. Gertrude Stein, if I remember well, had written a whole tract on this subject.

Meanwhile, if any of you kind readers has $1000 to spare, please buy me the OED ( www.oup.com ) for the New Year. One of my good friends has it - his pride, my envy. Oh! Also, is the Onida Devil (of DD fame) still alive? Merci!

[A] The day it definitely turned Cold, I saw my feet advancing, As winter does off the north pole, Towards that arbor of trees.

Soon under my feet I found The five fingers of maple leaves Slowly tunneling into the soul, To hibernate all winter Under a blanket of molten fire.

Here what is alive can stand For what is dead. So he comes Alive again and beings to sing. Under me, Peavine Creek, provides Accompanies him, running Silver tongues over cold stones, And I drink to his song from the bone Flask of winters of separation.

[B] Laughter spilling out Between my fingers, Rain in winter.

Lean black branches Grab sky’s ass, The ginko dropped All its leaves overnight.

Travelling back to you, I lose pain, loose change.

There is another world, and it is in this one. ~ Paul Eluard

In a quite room, by candle light (a hurricane previous night Had knocked out power, water And hundred year old oaks) A mapmaker sits and shuffles His deck of cards: jokers, lovers, Enemies, friends, angels and demons.

The first card he picks, he places Face up on water, a flotilla A drifting continent. Tasmania This devil (she was also his first Muse and lover) gets.

The second, that smiling, stammering Judas, Full of casual betrayals, his master In this regard, finally gets his comeuppance And is sent to Antarctica, where time Is a long night or a long day. For food: dog meat, for drink: hard ice. And clenched on his feet, in a vise like grip, That heavy sledge of memory.

Then come others. Enemies get Amazon where tribes shoot painful poison Darts with blowguns into them. Those who Didn’t return his invitations get Scandinavia Where people usually die of depression and cirrhosis. And those who took advantage of his Friendship, even if they didn’t mean to, Get one of those countries in Africa, Slave labor in a diamond mines, So close to heaven, so many lashes, And so on.

This diabolic game will continue all night. And you curious onlooker, you better Play your own now. Beat it!