Words in the Wild

Sometimes words escape the page and gallop off into the wild, attaching themselves to a grander a canvas - a building, a wall, a billboard - and they take on a new identity. I like that. I like the way they expand, even small words; how they take on a new power and confidence, a more statuesque form and how their meanings can bloat out with broader suggestions. Sometimes, given their location, they become comedians and masters of the obvious: the word BENT on an Adelaide city building - one of numerous references to the word 'bent' I saw that day; the word JETTY on Adelaide's Fleurieu Peninsular on a blue building butting up to the blue ocean - one endless vista of gorgeous blue; and the word LIFEBUOY on...well....a lifebuoy shed (I presume) at Port Lyttelton, over the hills from Christchurch.