Carbon Child

The Carbon Child and a Problem of Indeterminate Descriptors: From Color to Water

The carbon child gathers flowers, hoards colored fabrics, chases burrowing grubs and lives longer without food than water. Water means granaries of light, strong seed printing, good fishing described in erotic language of Viburnum Red, Light-On-Shimmering Yellow, Purple of the Deep Bruise. We observe that often water is undemanding and moves skyward, though some makes thin film around soil particles determined both by water's cohesive vision and by water's hesitation of water to water. If we desire to describe a surface of water that has ground soaked at summer shower, we haltingly suggest that it is an indeterminate darkening stain. The carbon child gropes for a means to define this particular dull stain, even while begging for the gaudiest of painted toys. Thus he is again cramped by the poverty of language to define surfaces of darkness and light, and we collectively suffer the insufficiency of our lexical and perceptual maps. We must encourage concrete and precise description of spectral conditions, an essential attribute for ethical conduct as citizen. Our inability to maintain accurate language concerning surface light on simple objects increases tenfold as we attempt to comprehend fluid systems over rich surfaces of time which decadent underground syntax, or ground-water-talking, perversely, though some say purposefully, obscures.

"Clear mental images make clear speech. Vague thoughts find vague utterance."
—-A. H. Munsell, A Color Notation

"Precise Utterance asserts Form. Shapelessness is Violation."
—-The Utterance Army, Violation Campaign

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