![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerOrigami is a transient art form. Even aside from fragility, paper is springy -- the creases spread, legs splay, bodies puff and distort. Models undo themselves. You learn as well, as a folder, to be generous. A single pack of paper can fill all available horizontal display space. It's give them away or be buried -- or watch them fall, or get crumpled, or gnawed on by cats.
And yet, sometimes models last. That black scorpion on the television set is nearly a decade old, as is this dragonfly above my desk. Sometimes.
I fold the words, line upon line,
until they fill my own design,
one marble monuments will not
outlast, per legend -- which is rot:
words are just breath, soon said and heard
and then forgotten when we're old.
I take my scribbled page and fold
a masu box to hold this word.
---L.
And yet, sometimes models last. That black scorpion on the television set is nearly a decade old, as is this dragonfly above my desk. Sometimes.
"The life of an origami reaches its zenith with the delight that glows in the face of the creator either at the instant of completion or at the moment when the work is offered as a gift to someone else. It is fated, however, to decline thereafter.
"The life span of origami works of all kinds -- animals or flower forms or unit-figures -- is short. Displayed on shelf or table, they are centers of attention for a little while. Some of them serve for a time as containers. But, sooner or later, they become dusty, faded, and destined for the trash basket. Even carefully kept they do not remain in good condition for very long.
"Nonetheless, though the individual folded works may be short lived, an origami design springs to fresh life each time someone executes it and in this sense may be regarded as eternal."
—Tomoko Fusé, Unit Origami: Multidimensional Transformations
I fold the words, line upon line,
until they fill my own design,
one marble monuments will not
outlast, per legend -- which is rot:
words are just breath, soon said and heard
and then forgotten when we're old.
I take my scribbled page and fold
a masu box to hold this word.
---L.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 20 April 2008 06:47 pm (UTC)My dad is a writer; he sometimes writes poetry, and he's especially interested in the magic of words. He would love this poem.
And my mother would love it because it's a beautiful poem, and that's enough reason.
no subject
Date: 20 April 2008 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 April 2008 07:42 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 20 April 2008 07:46 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 21 April 2008 12:30 am (UTC)