May a Tear Not Betray Me

I've been thinking about the dilemma of modern writers, how hard it is to bring forth a phrase, such as the title of this post, that is not already set down in stone or even on parchments somewhere. Originality is increasingly hard to come by!

I'm trying to remember when the last time I spied elegant English in use, except in the New Yorker Magazine, pardon me, there is some there, and even in Harper's or "Sun" Magazine. There may well be thousands of examples out there. These are only my own.

But there are writers who can capture human emotions with pristine insight, such as when e. annie proulx's wrote the following in her book, Accordion Crimes:

"Now Baby understood his father's greatness without jealousy or envy. Saw his inventiveness, his place in the history of the music. When they sang together now, he felt his voice embrace that of his father, a kind of sexless marrying like two stream of water, coming together. Together they were in a closeness not even lovers could know, as the shadows of two birds at different altitudes cross the ground touching."

Having sung duets from time to time, I know this feeling. There really is a moment when the voices are blending that the only descriptive emotion is that of some unearthly sort of Love. It's mysterious how it happens, but e. annie proulx captured it, in words. She is a marvelous writer.

With the thousands of words available to us, writers are struggling. May a tear not betray me, but I'd love to write with such power and insight.