amber, n. (revised)
1. A fossilized resin, typically golden-yellow and translucent,
used since antiquity for preservation of small bodies.
2. The colour of a mechanism observed but not understood;
the light caught between gears that have no business fitting
yet do.
3. (informal) The state of a traffic signal between go and stop;
a Monday held at threshold, humming.
4. What forms around a day in which nothing moved
but everything turned.
5. (obsolete) A substance believed to trap not insects
but obligations — three per specimen, interlocking,
each one wearing the other smooth.
6. See also: patina. See also: zero. See also: the particular
transparency of keeping still while the works keep working.