[syndicate] Avalanche

[Alan Sondheim]

Avalanche


The two bodies fell from avalanche barrier to barrier, each occupying a
qha of virtual snow. The man was thirsty, the woman hungry. They felt
nothing for each other. They held on to each other. They knew each other
far too well.

Now the woman thinks the man is duplicitous, dual to her trial. But there
were many others buried beneath the earth.

The dead ask, O where art thou. The dead ask Why art thou come. The dead
beg, Now let us go.

The woman is dead to the man. The woman is dead to me. The woman is dead
to the dead. Fall, fall, man and woman. You are all dead.

http://www.asondheim.org/avalanche.mov

>From Modern Spoken Tibetan, Lhasa Dialect, Goldstein and Nornang:

"A qha is a measurement that equals one square of whatever the material
is. Its size, therefore, is not standardized but depends on the width
of the material."

Therefore the qha is dependent on the material foundation of the material
as structured.

>From Fijian Grammar, Milner:

"In Fijian, there are good reasons to apply the word gender to describe a
grammatical category of four classes, even if there is no connexion
between these classes and sex: the word gender being used here to describe
a feature basically the same as gender in English though different in its
details. For the sake of simple reference, the classes of Fijian gender
will be referred to as:
 	(i) Neutral
 	(ii) Edible
 	(iii) Drinkable
 	(iv) Familiar"

"PROPER NUMBER

(a) Proper number is only carried by pronouns and has four classes:
_singular,_ _dual,_ _trial_ and _plural._
(b) The _singular_ is used for one and only one, the _dual_ for two and
only two, the _trial_ for three or a few, and the _plural_ for many."

>From Torwali, An Account of a Dardic Language of the Swat Kohistan,
Stein:

"The usual Interjection is _e_ "O", as in _e! tu ket-si thu_ "O! of where
are thou?"; _e zuwan! tu ke ap_ "O youth! why are thou come?"; _e! mere
tilai_ "O! now let us go."