By Sharon Flitterman-King
Words grow out of words
I fathom that—
from the Indo-European root
word pet: To spread
As in “length of two arms
stretched out.”
.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes
But wait, there’s more:
the Latin patere to be open
comes from pet
As in patent and clear
and open
to understanding
Or the Latin pandere
to spread out, in
expand, the possibilities
of fathom
the word
Related to the beautiful
petal, from the Greek
petalon, from pet
a leaf, whose loveliness
often I cannot
fathom
Then there’s paella and pan
also from pet, in the
Greek patane, or
“thing spread out”
So let’s eat and drink
to words—
as we fathom them
together
.
Nothing of him that does fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich
and strange
the fathomless tempest
of words.
--For Claudia
Sharon Flitterman-King, PhD, lives with her husband in Hillsdale, New York. She is the author of "A Secret Star," among other works.
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