epigramma

But he is obviously fascinated by everything. I have seen him pick up a stone from the ground and examine it with the deepest interest, turn andtwist it, and finally pocket it, as though it were a rarity. Anything and everything seems to fascinate him. Is he a lunatic?

An enviable lunatic! One for whom a pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.

: par largerkvist, The Dwarf (1945)

I have picked flowers where I found them -
Have picked up sea shells and rocks and pieces of
wood where there were sea shells and rocks and
pieces of wood that I liked

When I found the beautiful white bones on the
desert I picked them up and took them home too

i have used these things to say what it is to me the
wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it

: georgia o'keeffe, in the catalogue
of an exhibition of her 1943 paintings at An American Place

The stone can only be found when the search lies heavily on the searcher. - -

Thou seekest hard and findest not. Seek not and thou wilst find.

: anonymous, Alchemist's Rosarium

The touchstone of an art is in its precision.

ezra pound, The Egoist (1913)

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

e.e. cummings, 95 poems (1958)