SPELL READING 4: The Flesh of Language

On page 89 of the Spell of the Sensuous is an excerpt from a Modoc song which goes like this:

I

the song

I walk here

I found that to be very poetic. I like the way the author refers to them self as the song. In a way we are all a song. Then the song says I walk here. I thought about places I walk and I pictured being among the trees. On page 88 David Abram talks about how owls speak and how indigenous hunting people would be careful about what they spoke about in the woods because the owls hear them and spread the word. 

I had the vision of creating a miniature nature scene with a small tree and an owl perched below it but I had trouble with ideas of how to make the owl. Then I decided to search the antique stores by my house for owl figurines but could not find any. During this hunt though, I stumbled across a wonderful little iron goat. He looked so sad a lonely on the shelf and I knew I had to have him. To create a tree for the goat to walk by I picked a small weed from my yard and planted it in a rectangle box I made from balsa wood. I flattened the soil at the rim of the box and placed the goat under the tree limbs. 

I imaged how the goat would talk in his miniature land. I think it would be something like this:

 

Or this:

The next day when I went to take pictures of my small scene I found that my "tree" had withered. I was sad at first but then I realized that it was actually quite fitting with the piece. The sad little goat with his sad little tree both singing "I the song, I walk here."