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Authors
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BOAAT Book Designs
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Notes Toward an Elegy, or What the Books Were For
NOTES TOWARD AN ELEGY,
or
WHAT THE BOOKS WERE FOR
by
Hannah Aizenman
i.
The books were because something happened
that gutted us of words. They were not to help us
or restore what we had lost. They were a place
to put our emptiness a center
that might hold. The books were
books of questions I did not know you well—
ii.
Remember
from Old French
remembrer
from
Latin
rememorari
meaning
call to mind
as in
re-
(emphatic, expressed force)
memor
(mindful).
Member
Middle English via Old French from
Latin
membrum
meaning
limb
likely from
Proto-Indo-European
mems-ro
meaning
flesh
,
meat
.
iii.
When in the morning I make coffee when I light
a cigarette to what do my hands listen?
Once I had to tell them do this, do this, do this.
There are things a body learns. There are things
it won’t forget.