tanka with kigo
Annette Marie Hyder

sunset paints windows
of the apartment building,
transforms rows of glass

into art on the tall walls:
a reflecting gallery


Windows

Windows: for climbing as well as looking out of, for closing against the cold, for fastening against the night, for surveillance out of and for peeking into. When the colors from a sunset dazzle windowpanes, transforming them into works of art hung on the sides of buildings, I always think of the origin of the word window:

From Wikipedia

The word Window originates from the Old Norse ‘vindauga’, from ‘vindr –wind’ and ‘auga – eye’, i.e. "wind eye". In Norwegian Nynorskand Icelandic the Old Norse form has survived to this day (in Icelandic only as a less used synonym to gluggi), in Swedish the word vindöga remains as a term for a hole through the roof of a hut, and in the Danish language ‘vindue’ and Norwegian Bokmål ‘vindu’, the direct link to ‘eye’ is lost,just like for 'window'. The Danish (but not the Bokmål) word is pronounced fairly similar to window.

Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to an unglazed hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English‘eagþyrl’, which literally means ‘eye-hole,’ and ‘eagduru’ ‘eye-door’.Many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word ‘fenestra’ to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish ‘fönster’, or German ‘Fenster’. The use of window in English is probably due to the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age. In English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-1700s and fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a facade.

From Webster's 1828 Dictionary, Window, n. [ G. The vulgar pronunciation is windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.] 

Links of interest

Throughout history, whether primitive holes in the wall,  mullioned lead and glass windows, paper windows (China, Korea and Japan), flattened pieces of translucent animal horn (14th century Northern Britain), or plates of thinly sliced marble, windows have protected the inhabitants from the elements and transmitted light. Wikipedia

The stained glass windows of a certain church came to life at night in George Macdonald's At the Back of the North Wind. Click here for free (in the United States) At the Back of the North Wind eBook formats at The Gutenberg Project, or here for editions through Amazon.com

According to Acts 20:7-12, during Paul’s third journey he preached an exceptionally long sermon in Traos. A young man, sitting in an upstairs window sill, went to sleep and fell out the window. He was thought to be dead, but Paul revived him.

The nine most famous windows in history
Windows on the World Restaurant
Images of famous windows