Today, something a little different. A sestina by Kathleene West. If you don’t know what a sestina is, see how long it takes you to figure out the pattern.

FARMER’S CHILD

That winter a farmer walked in pain
from a twisted back and the land he worked–a land
that glistened like a Christmas card, the barn
decorated with snow, flanked by steam-breathing cows,
impatient, bellowing to leave the cold
to barter grain for milk.

Lined like children, the cats yowled for milk.
A careful kick and they caterwauled in pain,
shaking their paws back to the cold,
reminded again: his rules, his land.
He called out to the cows,
and watched them sway like elephants into the barn.

A shadow loomed in each stall in the barn,
and the damp smell of hide and the hint of milk
pressed the air. He chained the cows,
this morning, gently, and the chain rubbed no pain.
Like others crouched in barns in this rough land,
he flexed his fingers in the morning cold.

No gloves for this task. His hands shook as the cold
and wheezing wind hooked through the barn–
one more message from his land.
Hunched like a cat over milk,
he paused as if to give the pain
a chance to grip before he bent to the cow’s

bulging side. Between two solid cows,
he breathed a barrier against the cold,
imagined a barrier between pain
and his meager shadow cast to the barn
with a shadow bucket of grayish milk.
He thought of warmth in a windless land.

I’ve trailed behind you, my father, on this land
you own, or that owns you, herded the cows
down the pasture lane and balanced to milk
beside you. I know the fear that crawls with the cold
and the despair of a sagging, unshingled barn.
It’s more than your back that brought you pain.

The land waits in a scene that is always cold.
Cows stamp fitfully in the barn.
The milk flows, smooth and steady as this pain.

–Kathleene West

PRELUDES

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

–T.S. Eliot

NOCTURNE

Tonight all the leaves are paper spoons
in a broth of wind. Last week
they made a darker sky below the sky.

The houses have swallowed their colors,
and each car moves in the blind sack
of its sound like the slipping of water.

Flowing means falling very slowly—
the river passing under the tracks,
the tracks then buried beneath the road.

When a knocking came in the night,
I rose violently toward my reflection
hovering beneath this world. And then

the fluorescent kitchen in the window
like a page I was reading—a face
coming into focus behind it:

my neighbor locked out of his own party,
looking for a phone. I gave him
a beer and the lit pad of numbers

through which he disappeared; I found
I was alone with the voices that bloomed
as he opened the door. It’s time

to slip my body beneath the covers,
let it fall down the increments of shale,
let the wind consume every spoon.

My voice unhinging itself from light,
my voice landing in its cradle—.
How terrifying a payphone is

hanging at the end of its cord.
Which is not to be confused with sleep—
sleep gives the body back its mouth.

–Wayne Miller

EASTER MORNING

Maybe someone comes to the door and says,
“Repent,” and you say, “Come on in,” and it’s
Jesus. That’s when everything you ever did, or said,
or even thought, suddenly wakes up again and
sings out, “I’m still here,” and you know it’s true.
You just shiver alive and are left standing
there suddenly brought to account: saved.

Except, maybe that someone says, “I’ve got a deal
for you.” And you listen, because that’s how
you’re trained–they told you, “Always hear both sides.”
So then the slick voice can sell you anything, even
Hell, which is what you were getting by listening.
Well, what should you do? I’d say always go to
the door, yes, but keep the screen locked. Then,
while you hold the Bible in one hand, lean forward
and say carefully, “Jesus?”

–William Stafford

IMPERATIVE

The thing to remember
is how tentative all of this
really is. You could wake up dead.

Or the woman you love
could decide you’re ugly.
Maybe she’ll finally give up
trying to ignore the way you
floss your teeth when
you watch television.
All I’m saying is that
there are no sure things here.

I mean, you’ll probably wake up alive,
and she’ll probably keep putting off
any actual decision about your looks.
Could be she’ll be glad your teeth
are so clean. The morning could be
full of all the love and kindness
you need. Just don’t go thinking
you deserve any of it.

–Scott Cairns

KEEPING HAIR

My grandmother had braids
at the thickest, pencil wide
held with bright wool
cut from her bed shawl.
No teeth left but white hair
combed and wet carefully
early each morning.
The small wild plants found among stones
on the windy and brown plateaus
revealed their secrets to her hand
and yielded to her cooking pots.
She made a sweet amber water
from willows,
boiling the life out
to pour onto her old head.
“It will keep your hair.”
She bathed my head once
rainwater not sweeter.
The thought that once
when I was very young
her work-bent hands
very gently and smoothly
washed my hair in willows
may also keep my heart.

–Ramona Wilson

LACE

You enter my mind,
catch my thoughts
like a lace curtain,
letting small ones pass through,
holding the rest for a time,
when we shall talk.

Long into darkness
I have not slept.
You sift the night air,
your image beside me,
arms laced to my body.

I did not think
to miss you so,
did not believe
love could wear me
with such comfort.

–Ken Brewer

Yes, the name looks like a pseudonym, a play on “you and me,” but Yuan Mei was a real poet in Qing Dynasty China. He lived from 1716 to 1797 and wrote deceptively simple little poems, like this one, which sets a mood that I really enjoy.

WINTER NIGHT

It is late in the Winter night.
I am absorbed in a book
And forget to go to bed.
My wife takes my lamp and says,
“Do you know what time it is?”

–Yuan Mei

(translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN’S RETURN TO VIENNA

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn,
or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me….
The Heiligenstadt Testament

Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness

I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward —
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning —
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.

At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed —
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s
home-toward-evening song — rushed in, and I
would rage again.

I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.

Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly— I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it. . . . It is impossible

to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I’ve named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.

I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can’t you see that I’m deaf? —
I also cannot stop listening.

–Rita Dove

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just
And makes me end where I begun.

–John Donne

A personal favorite, for personal reasons.

WAKING AT 3 A.M.

Even in the cave of night when you
wake and are free and lonely,
neglected by others, discarded, loved only
by what doesn’t matter–even in that
big room no one can see,
you push with your eyes till forever
comes in its twisted figure eight
and lies down in your head.

You think water in the river;
You think slower than the tide in
the grain of wood; you become
a secret storehouse that saves the country,
so open and foolish and empty.

You look over all that the darkness
ripples across. More than has ever
been found comforts you. You open your
eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
and as far as your thoughts can run.
A great snug wall goes around everything,
has always been there, will always
remain. It is a good world to be
lost in. It comforts you. It is
all right. And you sleep.

–William Stafford

Time to turn to my friend and mentor, David Lee.

DRY LIGHTNING: THOR, IN DISGUISE, SEARCHES FOR FREYA

A tattered shadow
like the ghost of a lost child
peering into the desert
in search of the wandering moon
clings to the edge of horizon

then rises, full grown and angry,
to stride across the afternoon sky,
thickening the air.

Suddenly, as if a madman
escaped from the underworld
swung a six-thousand-pound sledge
into an eighty-ton block of obsidian
hung from a giant’s noose
togglebolted to the sky,

the canyonlands ring
as the peal echoes through the stretch marks
of the earth’s belly.

–David Lee

Today’s poem comes from my favorite Chinese poet, Tu Fu (sometimes written Du Fu), who lived in the Tang Dynasty, 712-720.

JADE FLOWER PALACE

The stream whirls. The wind moans in
The pines. Grey rats scurry over
Broken tiles. What prince, long ago,
Built this palace, standing in
Ruins beside the cliffs? There are
Green ghost fires in the black rooms.
The shattered pavements are all
Washed away. Ten thousand organ
Pipes whistle and roar. The storm
Scatters red autumn leaves.
His dancing girls are yellow dust.
Their painted cheeks have crumbled
Away. His gold chariots
And courtiers are gone. Only
A stone horse is left of his
Glory. I sit on the grass and
Start a poem, but the pathos of
It overcomes me. The future
Slips imperceptibly away.
Who can say what the years will bring?

–Tu Fu

(Translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

April is National Poetry Month. From time to time throughout the month (I’d like to commit to every day, but I know how I am) I will post some personal favorites.

First up, because it seems appropriate, is “Selecting a Reader” by Scott Cairns, the dedicatory poem to his excellent collection, The Theology of Doubt.

Selecting a Reader

— after Ted Kooser

The one I want is the one
whose nape is a little damp
from perspiration, and who
would be beautiful if only
her nose were a little shorter, or
if her eyes didn’t hint the way they do
of wanting to move closer together.
One of her front teeth will be
leaning just a little on the shoulder
of the other. She will have
come into the bookstore to fill
out a lunch break alone. I’d have her
lift this book not thinking much
about wanting it, but she’d read
this first poem and find herself
smiling, forgetting how her eyes
actually cross when she reads, letting
her lips part just enough for the light
to catch the edge of her tooth.
–Scott Cairns

That’s my article up there across the top of the magazine. When you think of what people can see on a magazine cover on a rack at a bookstore, with another magazine in front of it, it means that the editors at The Writer think my article will catch people’s attention and sell the magazine It’s the bait to the cover story’s (or, in this case, the special section’s) hook.

Nice.

I like trying new launchers. Anything that can reduce the need to search for programs in the Windows start menu and clear the desktop of the mass of icons is a good thing. My favorite for the last couple of years has been RocketDock, a launch bar similar to the dock in MacOS. But I think I’ve discovered one I might like better, Find and Run Robot (FARR). FARR doesn’t match RocketDock’s cool eye-candy. There’s no animated launch bar with icons that pop out at you when you mouse over it.

Instead, FARR combines a launcher with desktop search to deliver a fast, easy way to find any program on your computer with just a few key strokes. Then, using its built-in intelligence, it keeps track of your most frequently used programs, which makes them even easier to find and open.

It’s very simple, really. You hit one key combination and a little command-line like window opens. Type a couple of letters and a list of every program beginning with those letters pops up almost instantly. Seriously, the speed is very impressive. After you’ve used it once, FARR adds a list of your most commonly used programs under the text window. The more you use an app, the higher its score, and those apps with the highest score show up at the top of the list. It’s almost like having your computer suggest the apps you want to open, and be right almost every time.

It doesn’t stop there. FARR also recognizes some document types, including OpenOffice.org documents. So, you could go to My Computer, browse through several layers of folders, search through your document folder for the right document, then open it. Or, you can press key combination (I use ctrl-space), type a few letters that appear anywhere in the filename, then press ENter to open the app at the top of the list, or click to open one farther down. No Start menu. No searching through a desktop full of icons. You don’t even have to use the Windows Explorer. Your apps and key files are literally at your fingertips.

What’s more you can set up aliases, or mini menus containing your favorite stuff. This extends the usual list of nine favorite apps by replacing some of them with an alias that you can click for an additional list of apps. In other words, you can use an alias to provide easy access to your favorite writing applications, or your latest manuscript drafts, or whatever you want.

The FARR Web site also contains a number of add-ons that increase the functionality. I haven’t found any that I want, yet, but you might.

I use FARR together with RocketDock. I keep my most frequently used apps on my RocketDock, where I’m used to finding them, hidden conveniently off the top edge of my screen, and I use FARR to open apps I might not open quite as often. But the more I use FARR, the less I’m going to RocketDock. That means I can simplify my dock by getting rid of stuff I don’t use every day.

Simplifying access to apps and files is what this is all about, especially on today’s big hard disks (and tomorrow’s even bigger disks). And it’s especially useful on a laptop, where I can use keystrokes rather than a mouse or thumbpad.

It’s rare that I find a free app that changes the way I interact with my computer, but after using FARR for two or three weeks, I’m almost ready to claim that it’s that kind of app. This thing should be standard on every computer.

Tomorrow I’ll stand in line to vote. That got me thinking about what we do in lines, and how that’s still more evidence about how divided we are as a country.

Where I grew up and every place I’ve lived, a person stands in line, but in some parts of the country, one stands on line. Standing on line makes very little sense to me, unless you’re standing on a painted line. Even then, you’re standing on the line or a line, not merely on line.

Then again, why argue about this? We can’t even agree on where the line starts. In my world, the start of the line is the front of the line, or the spot closest to the voting booth or bank teller. The end of the line is the back of the line, the spot farthest from the destination. And yet, some parts of the country turn that around. You can see it in the movie A Christmas Story. To these people, the line starts where you get in line and ends where you get out of line.

That actually makes some sense, I guess. It’s all a matter of perspective. If you are the center of the world, then of course the line starts where you get in it. Everything starts wherever you are. If, however, you’re just part of a bigger whole, then the line starts where the first person got in it to start the line. You can’t start a line at the end of the line. Can you? Apparently, people do in the Northeast.

But then, they’ll tell you there is no line until there are more than one person in it, and I can’t say they’re wrong. If there’s one person in line or on line or whatever, then it’s not a line. It’s just a guy standing around waiting for his turn.  Two people? Well, that still just a couple of people waiting. Even if they are standing around in the order that they arrived, they’re still just standing around, positioned conveniently. Three or more? Now you’re talking about a line.

Once that third person gets there, though, we end up back at the same problem. Where does the line start? Does the line start where it began, with the person who started it? Duh. Of course it starts where it started. It couldn’t start at the end. It’s the only reasonable answer.

My opposition is likely to say something like, “Yeah, but you can’t start standing in line at the end, either.” To that I say, “Bosh and poppycock.” It’s the only logical place to start.

I have evidence on my side. The start of the line has other names. Take the “head” of the line. If you cut in at the head of the line, the teacher is going to send you back to the end of the line. If you have a head of the line and a start of the line at opposite ends, then the line will soon be pulled apart at the ends. “Oh,” you say. “So now you’ah sayin’ that the front of the line is an end. See, look theah, you said ‘pulled apaht at the ends.’”

Shut up. You know what I mean, and you can’t confuse me that easily.

We could make things more clear by talking about the “front” and “back” of the lines. To me, there’s no ambiguity that way. But then, to me, starting at the front and ending at the back is perfectly clear when you look at a line as an organic whole with the end (I told you to stop that!) that people face being the front, the place where the line started, and continues to start, and the spot behind the people in the line, to their backs, at the back or the end is also perfectly clear, and so is that sentence if you really read it from beginning to end.

Good idea. Look at this line of text. Where does it start? Does it start at the place where the last word gets into the line, or with the first word? I hear you Easterners trying to claim I just made your argument for you, trying to say that the sentence, like a line, begins where you get in it and ends where you leave it.

But you’re wrong. Why? Because you just are. You’re trying to twist things around and look at it backwards. Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me the sun rises over the ocean and sets over land. I’ve sat on the beach and watched a lot of sunsets, so you can’t get me with that one.

Look, if I’m goofing off in the middle of the line and the teacher grabs me by the ear and pulls me out of line and orders me to go to the start of the line right this instant, I’m going to love that teacher enough for sending me to the front of the line that I won’t even notice the pain in my ear. And next time I’m in a slow-moving line, you’d better bet I’m going to goof around again so I can go straight to the start of the line again. Who wouldn’t?

It’s like another Northeasternism that my friend Susan, a teacher in Connecticut, pointed out to me, completely unaware that it’s a bit of regional oddness. Apparently, in her neck of the woods, if a kid gets in trouble at recess, he’s told to stand on the wall.

Dewd! That’s so awesome!

At my school, when we were caught trying to climb the wall to get on the roof, we got in trouble and had to stand against the wall. If you’ve been there, you know how cruel that is, making a guy stand against the very wall he wanted to climb, so close, but yet so far from his goal. If a teacher caught me climbing the wall and ordered me to stand on it, that teacher would get a massive gift basket from me at Christmas for demanding that I do what I was trying to do to begin with. Very few teachers are that cool, and those who are deserve a special place in heaven.

It would be like if I fought a kid to show off in front of a girl and a teacher pulled us apart and said, “Just for that, you have to take an extra ten minutes of recess! Don’t argue with me, or I’ll make you go home a half hour early. With candy!”

Who wouldn’t love that teacher? Especially if the girl you were showing off for was named Candy.

Think about that when you’re standing near the end of a slow-moving line at the polls tomorrow. Just don’t step out of line or they’ll send you back to the end of the line.

Or if you’re lucky, they’ll send you to the start of the line. Then you can go play with Candy sooner.

—————-
Now playing: Kinks - Underneath the Neon Sign
via FoxyTunes

What we woke up to this morning:

—————-
Now playing: Jeff Larson - At The Depot
via FoxyTunes

Three years ago today was my last day in Germany, a day of goodbyes. I feel sad just thinking about it. Three years ago tomorrow I was back in Austria, which was great, but I made so many friends and fell in love with so many places, that the last day in Germany was a tough one. I remember wandering around Nurnberg for the last time, then going in to the office and saying some last goodbyes.

Today is a dark, cold day, the perfect kind of day for looking back and missing people.

—————-
Now playing: THE KINKS - God’s Children
via FoxyTunes

We just picked 145 pounds of apples, plus another 10 pounds or so we gave the neighbor before we weighed them, plus two wheelbarrow loads of apples that the birds and bugs had gotten to.

All from one little tree.

The recipe I want to cook tonight calls for three pounds. I hope we have enough.

Here’s a picture of Cinnamon Oliver Orwell PuddinPop Scut Farkas Scrottle Spooky playing with the bags.

—————-
Now playing: Beatles - If You’ve Got Trouble
via FoxyTunes

I was watching the news last night. Among the weighty matters being broadcast that should have dominated my brain, some story or commercial or something included the word trousers, and that’s what got my brain engaged.

Now, trousers is not an uncommon word, even here in the U.S., where it has largely been replaced by pants. Everybody knows what it means. But that doesn’t stop it from being a weird word. What does it mean? Where does it come from?

On the surface, it would seem like trousers would be a thing or things that trouse, the same way fingers fing. But that makes no sense. As far as I know, I’ve never troused in my life, and neither has anybody I know. I would be highly suspicious of anybody who trouses, and would expect them to live a life of crime and mayhem, or to run for President of the U.S.

There has to be more to it.

My main sources claim that trousers originated between 1585 and 1595. Apparently trousers is a variation of  trews, defined by Dictionary.com as “close-fitting tartan trousers, worn esp. by certain Scottish regiments.” Trews, in turn, is derived from the Scots-Gaelic word triubhas, pronouced something like troo-us. We don’t say trews in the U.S., much less triubhas, but we do use another variation of the word: drawers.

So there you have it.  Trousers comes from triubhas, and is closely related to drawers. Both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster say the same thing.

Case closed. Move on. There’s nothing to see here.

Not so fast, bucko.

I found that particular explanation interesting, but insufficient. It says nothing about the origin of triubhas or trews. It might be true and there might actually be nothing more to it, but I wasn’t happy with it. I put my head in my hands and started to think.

Uh-oh.

What words are similar to trousers? OK, what words are similar to trousers and have a meaning that, with a little imagination, could also be similar? Eventually, I landed on trusses.

Truss comes from the 13th Century. That’s older than trousers by some 300 years.

Furthermore, Merriam-Webster defines truss thus, Gus:

“Middle English to pack, load, bind, from Anglo-French trusser, trousser, from Vulgar Latin *torsare, from *torsus twisted”

Pack? Load? Bind? That sounds like what trousers do. It’s definitely what they did back in the 1970’s, although today’s baggy trussers don’t seem to truss much at all.

And what’s this about truss coming from the Anglo-French trousser? That word looks awfully familiar, and the Vulgar Latin word torsare looks more like trousers than triubhas.

Of course, I had to check torsus. It is, indeed, Latin for twisted, and is the root of torsade, a twisted fabric or ribbon worn as a decoration, often on a hat. So now we have the same word turning into something that’s worn on both ends of the body. Oh, and everything in between, because torsus also appears (although I didn’t see definite proof) to be related to torso, which just happens to be the part of the body that twists.

Now I’m happy. I have a word origin that satisfies me, with some interesting derivatives that make the word fun.

Cool.

But wait, there’s more.

Torsus has a common variant, tortus. That’s the root of torture, the binding or twisting of the body.

So trousers, ultimately, are torture. No wonder the Scottish, after having been defeated in their rebellion of 1745 and as a result being banned from wearing kilts, celebrated the return to their kilts 30 years later by inventing the dance known as the Seann Triubhas, a Gaelic phrase meaning “old or unwanted trousers.”

It sounds like I’m making this up, but I’m not.

The Seann Triubhas mimics the shedding of uncomfortable, binding trousers and the return to the much more comfortable kilt, trading a tortuous, binding garment for another that, when worn in true Scottish style, is anything but.

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John McCain keeps painting himself as “the original maverick.”

He must be really, really old, even older than I thought.

In the sense that it means somebody who goes off on his her own way, the term maverick
is an Americanism that dates back to the late 1860s, after Samuel A.
Maverick (1803–70), a Texas pioneer who did not brand his calves.

John McCain keeps painting himself as “the original maverick.”

He must be really, really old, even older than I thought.

In the sense that it means somebody who goes off on his her own way, the term maverick is an Americanism that dates back to the late 1860s, after Samuel A. Maverick (1803–70), a Texas pioneer did not brand his calves.

John McCain is not, then, the original maverick.

Kyle asked yesterday whether the similar-looking words paramount and paramour are related. First of all, good for him for noticing the similarity and being curious. This kind of intellectual curiosity bodes well for a young man who just started his first year of university.

The words have very different meanings, but their similarity comes from the shared prefix par (like per), which means of or for.

Paramount can be broken into par a mount, of a mountain, which means “of the highest.” I like the word because it’s based on a metaphor. Something of the highest level of whatever it is paramount,  at the peak.

Paramour, on the other hand, is par amour, of or for love. A paramour is a lover, often (but not always) an illicit lover. It comes from Middle English, where it was borrowed from French. It’s meaning comes from the medieval concept of courtly love. One of the principles of courtly love is that true love is found outside marriage. Sounds foreign or at least highly sinful to us. In fact, it was sinful in the Catholic middle ages as well, where much was made of the fact that amor (love) is the opposite of Roma, Rome, the center of the Church and of all that was held holy.

Keep in mind that among the people of the court, marriage was not about love. It was about political alliance. Marriages were arranged to cement political relationships, so the concept of love in marriage was considered unlikely although, of course, it happened. But when there was love in a courtly marriage, it was almost an accident. So that’s how for love came to stand for illicit lovers. Often, that love was never consummated, causing the pain and anguish that are associated with the poetry of courtly love.
But, among the adherents of courtly love, a paramour was considered the ultimate, or paramount, expression of love, and, so, the way to come closest to God.

So, although there are only two letters separating the two words, their meanings are very different. On the other hand, they share a prefix and are intertwined through context.

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