Marlow’s Listener

“‘When I first got the OED I read it through from A to Z. I wondered which word had the greatest coverage, and in Volume VIII (Q-Sh), I found it: ’set.’ More than a hundred and twenty meanings were given for the verb ’set’ used alone; another thirty or so when used in conjunction with [...]

“Mes Reverends Peres, mes lettres n’avaient pas accoutume de se suivre de si pres, ni d’etre si etendues. Le peu de temps que j’ai eu a ete cause de l’un et de l’autre. Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”

Wind on tide,
shifting and sorting
shingle on strand

Sand shifts, silt sails,
each to its site
sieved to its size

Tide retreats, leaves
trophies of detritus
in honor of Nike

Idling next come couples
picking pebbles skipped
the day before

Fat wood, bull like
lines the littoral pushed
not yet pulled again adrift

Ice recedes ten thousand years
to come again in another ten
or not at all

Jumbled, fumbled, abraded,
at every [...]