Le Mot Juste

Danzante
dancing with joy!

Le mot juste

Searching for what exactly?
For the exact word, le mot juste,
the word that sums it all up,
catches the essence of the thing
and holds it in the mind forever.

Le mot juste? Think color.
Think color blind. Think blind.
Think of the world we see
reduced to grey scale.
Think of the seven colors
that stripe the rainbow sky,
each with a unique name:
it seems so easy, so simple.

But the world has changed.
Think now of the computer,
its screen more accurate
than the human eye and color
coordinated by a million or more
tiny little pixels that multiply
the seven rainbow colors
by a million or two and every
color numbered beyond
the recognition point
of the human eye: le mot juste
reduced to precision of number.

Think flowers. Think scent.
Think of the limited ways
we describe the smell of things.

I look across the breakfast table
and see my wife of fifty years,
a teenager reborn, walking into
the café where we first met.
I search my memory and my mind
for the words to describe that beauty,
that surge of excitement,
but I cannot find les mots justes.

Click on link for Roger’s reading
Le mot juste

7 thoughts on “Le Mot Juste”

  1. I love this. I’ve always wondered about how color blind people see the world and once asked my brother, blind to most colors, what it’s like but since he has been that way since birth he couldn’t really explain. I noticed once while we were walking thru the autumn woods that he was taking photos of all of the trees with gold leaves while I was going more for the red and maroon ones he told me gold was the only color he could see. It suddenly occurred to me that he led such a narrow life, yet he is happy in nature. And of course, there is a funny story that goes with his color blindness.

    When he was taking his drivers license test the officer conducting the test told him to park the car behind the green car. He had no idea which car was green, so he chose a place at random to parallel park. The officer told him he was supposed to park behind the green car and Ray very innocently replied, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you told me to park behind this one”. He still doesn’t know what color that one happened to be but was afraid if he admitted the truth there he would have restrictions on his license. All these years later he has never had an accident and still has no idea what color it was. While he was still at home Mother would put a note on his clothes with the color and and hang it with whatever went with it. After his ordination she did the same with his vestments so he would be wearing the color of the week at the right time.

    My best to Clare for staying the course for 50+ years. She is one special lady.

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      • It’s Eskimo weather here tonight. 33F a t the moment and supposed to go down to 20F by morning. Sunbathing only indoors with the windows closed and the heat turned up to very warm (85 F.). The horrid S word has been mentioned for overnight, but since the sun is forecast for later tomorrow I will not worry about that until it happens. And it seldom happens here. We get black ice instead.

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      • It was 63 F when I went out for a bit this afternoon with no wind. Very pleasant for a change. Not much fall color around here though. Not enough rain they say for the red maples and maroon dogwoods to show. It seemed to be very wet to me, but the trees say otherwise and I try not to argue with Mother Nature.

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