Cabbages and kings

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—

Of cabbages—and kings—

And why the sea is boiling hot—

And whether pigs have wings."

~Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass

Carefully stringing unlikely words together is one way to perform magic. The words above are especially magical to me. I do not know what they mean.

But they still mean something to me.

They put me in mind of two of my other favorite pieces of lyricality...

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe---

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

The old moon asked the three.

"We have come to fish for the herring fish

That live in this beautiful sea;

Nets of silver and gold have we!"

Said Wynken,

Blynken,

And Nod.

~Eugene Field

Wknken, Blynken and Nod

and...

While Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

Sons of bankers, sons of lawyers

Turn around and say good morning to the night

For unless they see the sky

But they can't and that is why

They know not if it's dark outside or light

~Elton John and Bernie Taupin

"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters"

on Honky Château

Elton, Eugene and Lewis - strange bedfellows, yes? Perhaps. But in my mind, these pieces all fit together into a type of goodness that I don't know how to categorize.

Shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, and kings or wooden shoes, crystal light, seas of dew and wishes from the moon or Mona Lisas, mad hatters, bankers' sons, lawyers' sons, night and sky. What does it all have in common? What does any of it mean? Nothing and everything all at once. Kind of like goats and violins and happiness or clocks and elephants and toothpick buildings.

These are the things that art can do to us. Art can bring to our consciousness an awareness of something we cannot explain and never anticipated (at least consciously). And this leaves us fuller than when we never knew there was something missing.