p e n c h a n t

Reading the first line in a book is like meeting someone for the first time, or opening a birthday gift. There’s anticipation, a moving forward into something new and unknown. The first line should read like poetry, worded carefully, perfectly. It’s important to make the right first impression. The first line should be a promise to the reader that the book is worth the read.

Here I’ve chosen the first line from a novel I picked off of a discount table, attracted by the cover, the title, and on closer look, the reviews, jacket flap copy, and the photographs of Edward Curtis, the turn-of-the-century photographer of native Americans, on whom the book focuses. This first line is a subtle tug, like a beckoning gesture. It includes two of the themes—art and memory—and introduces the structure, that of overlapping a faraway past (signified by “Leonardo”) with a recent past (“a decade ago”) with the present (notice the present-tense form). By stating the time of day of this remembrance, the author quite naturally inserts a strong motif found throughout the book; that small phrase—“one afternoon”—conveys an entire scene of light and shadow, and hence the feeling it evokes. Read the line without it and you’ll see.

Let me tell you about the sketch by Leonardo I saw one afternoon in the Queen’s Gallery in London a decade ago, and why I think it still haunts me.

The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins

And miles to go before I sleep. WISHING YOU ALL A PROSPEROUS 2010

Portrait of a young man in an old Jaguar, feelin’ goofy (as opposed to groovy), Dec 1979

Apologies to Robert Frost

Artist draws flies, conclusions, bath

Tail pipe exhausted

Funny bone cracks up, multiple fractures

For sale: cloud 9 (fixer-upper)

Aged man creeps out from under circumstances

Health Commissioner warns: “Obesity is next big thing”

Baker claims monkey bread missing link in food chain

Invisible man appears on Oprah

Elephant has crush on circus trainer

Mr. Potato Head schedules eye exam

Literary news: Spy comes in from heat, blames global warming

Archives: Einstein explains theory of expanding hair style

And the Good News Award goes to: Bed finds missing twin

The moon grinning at me like a Cheshire cat on a limb. Private joke, I guess.

(See enlargement for a better view.)

Reading the first line in a book is like meeting someone for the first time, or opening a birthday gift. There’s anticipation, a moving forward into something new and unknown. The first line should read like poetry, worded carefully, perfectly. It’s important to make the right first impression. The first line should be a promise to the reader that the book is worth the read.

Here I’ve chosen the first line from another of my favorite books, and favorite authors. It sets a mood, gives us a distinct lyrical voice, and introduces the unique theme: the incongruity of time standing still and time advancing. I think this line is timeless.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Writer contends instead of should be rather than, instead of instead of

Lawnmower cuts and runs

Pothole treated for depression

For sale: pie in the sky (fixer-upper)

Cell phone gives fiance ring

Fork in road splits, DOT conducts search

Graying elephant orders wrinkle cream

Steamroller victim charged for three hospital gowns

Mr. Potato Head foiled again

Literary news: Pinocchio gets nose job

Archives: Virgil tells Dante where to go

And the Good News Award goes to: Foyer passes entrance exam

Color is everywhere. You can walk in it, breathe it in.

photo by Troy Howell

Artist sharpens pencil, draws blank

Weed-eater caught inhaling

Survivor found on islets of Langerhans

For sale: space station (fixer-upper)

Coffee table can’t stand still

Hangnail files for separation

Elephant does Watusi

Mr Potato Head drowns in Greece

Literary news: Frankenstein seen entering second-hand store

Archives: Oscar Mayer speaks frankly to press

And the Good News Award goes to: Beatnik gets hip operation

There are owls where I live. You can hear them at night, calling and chuckling among themselves. Some nights they sound like monkeys.

Once in a great while you hear them at day.

I was out in the garden a few weeks ago, poking around, when I heard one call. Just once. I can’t find the right mix of letters to describe the call besides the standard, “Whoooo.” But it was more fluff and purr than that. A sigh of contentment or resignation—I couldn’t tell which. I scanned the trees surrounding me. I looked and looked, wandered here and there. No owl.

Later, as I was outside on the deck, I saw it (him? her? My Audubon guide doesn’t give a distinction. I’ll say him). About a 100 feet off and 50 feet up, in a long-needle pine, in the sun. I got my field glasses out and zoomed in. He was looking my way, nonchalant. He yawned, blinked one eye, took a nap.

I began to call him, though feeble the call was. “Whoo, woo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-o-o-o.” He opened an eye, closed it again. I kept calling. He took more naps. I thought it was unusual he was out sunning himself.

He suddenly dropped, straight out of sight, to catch a meal, I thought. But no: he swooped right in, just 25 feet away, to land in the old apple tree. He stayed for over two hours. I invited the 10-year-old neighbor boy to come see. I took pictures. I was able to get so close I could have touched him. We’re having the woods thinned near the pond, and his home might have been affected. I talked to him, soothingly, and left him sleeping in the apple tree and roamed the wooded area, but found no fallen hollow trees or any other signs of owl lodgings.

When I returned, at dusk, he was gone.

-

Here he is. See also my other owl encounter, here.
For a literary, lyrical encounter, see the wonderful Owl Moon by Jane Yolen,
illustrated by John Schoenherr.

(I’m not. But they are fun.)

I wrote a haiku
That was more like an “atchoo!”
(Hand me some Kleenex.)

Haikus are coo-coo
They’re not exactly poems
But what is the diff?

First, five syllables
Then it’s seven syllables
Then it’s five again