Verb It Up: To Be Is To Be Boring (cont.)

Weaving

Sunlight
threads through stiff trees
weaving a gold brown cloth
The forest wears a gauzy dress—
for now

---Laura Purdie Salas

I could have said the “Sunlight shines through stiff trees,” but that would be very common-sounding. Shines is a verb we use constantly about the sun. But I was looking for sewing and weaving terms to help with my cloth metaphor, and I decided “threads” was what I needed. It implies a purposeful, focused movement of the sun, and that’s the feeling I wanted.

So, if I wanted to write a poem about the wind, and if I wanted to compare it to a bird, I might use some bird verbs: flew, winged, pecked, flapped, etc. Even if I never mentioned the word bird in the poem, the use of these verbs not usually associated with the wind would begin making a connection in the reader’s mind.

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