Maurice Siegel

Potpourri Maurice Siegel

What is a word? I mean to that brain of ours, a sound distinctly different from tree branches in motion or those of leaves hanging down uncertain what to do next. We get simple instructions from tree noises except for getting out of the way should one of them collapse. Not much information was gathered after a life of staring up at trees in awe, not even a smile. The reason is obvious. We have to be told what a word is when struck on the ears for the first time, generally intended to identify some object that can bring danger or caring or usefulness. After that identification, it's clear sailing. The word grows like the tree does, with additional information tacked on to get you to laugh or cry or shrug or wonder or turn away unconcerned. Unless the word is attached to other words, words lurking about that can be hooked up with ease.

Something new will happen. The mind can become busy directing the body to cause something to come about. Something to come about comes in two sizes. The one size we know the best is an action to change what is around our body, directed by needs and wants. It is the second one coming about that has no outward change of body direction but does something special to the mind as to be carried around by that mind for a lifetime, if not longer. It is an amazing sense of one's feelings without motion to the body, rising out of words clustered together in certain ways that words can come together. This miracle of the human animal creates the feelings of a satisfaction never to be known to any other of the animals also fighting for survival. This sensation strikes deeply within oneself and is called by names we all recognize. There is poetry, prose, and plays to mention the few that bring me to a sense of emotion that otherwise would lie forever dormant in the rush through life's practical requiring needs to keep oneself available for more gathering up of practical needs. My break with that cycle, as life permitted, is what is expressed, as best as I could, in this book as I wandered in and out of one act, plays, poems, and essays, all discoveries I had a chance to taste while the tasting was good.