style guide (ii)
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Aimless Love
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table. In the shadows of an autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in the tailor’s window, and later for a bowl of broth, steam rising like smoke from a naval battle. This is the best kind of love, I thought, without recompense, without gifts, or unkind words, without suspicion, or silence on the telephone. The love of a chestnut, The jazz cap and one hand of the wheel. No lust, no slam of the door – the love of the miniature orange tree, the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower, the highway that cuts across Florida. No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor – just a twinge every now and then for the wren who had built her nest on a low branch overhanging the water and for the dead mouse, still dressed in its light brown suit. But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. After I carried the mouse by the tail to a pile of leaves in the woods, I found myself standing at the bathroom sink gazing down affectionately at the soap, so patient and soluble, so at home in its pale green soap dish. I could feel myself falling again as I felt its turning in my wet hands and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
(Billy Collins)
QUESTION: In ‘Aimless love’, Billy Collins confuses loving with wondering.
(will you AGREE or DISAGREE?)
… essay structure –
introductory paragraphs
– – – – hook counter-argument biographical/ textual details thesis statement: what claim are you making?
body paragraphs
– one idea, introduced by the topic sentence – topic sentences extend the logic of your thesis statement – always include evidential (textual) support – always use transitional language to logically link paragraphs
concluding paragraphs
– rephrased...