The Radish Patch

In my last post I went off on a bit of a tangent about roots and radishes. Then today, reading Margaret Avison's recently published posthumous autobiography, I Am Here and Not Not-There, I came across the following passage:

And is it today's defiant shrugging off of history that dictates the plastic quality of its new words? Plastic, not organic. There are roots and matted interweavings, across continents and down the centuries, underneath the words we have inherited, the language that shapes our responses, our understanding, our wit, e.g. (radical, radish, eradicate)!

Quick connections, and gradually resonant overtones: we need them both.

Love it when this sort of coincidence happens.