She . . .
I have heard it said in these and in other words that everything we think is all and only words, everything only a word. There are no things except but for words, I have heard and I have said; yes, words, ours, and words more, ours . . . ours of words . . . if you get what I am driving at; the force and the power and the glory of words.
What does it mean for someone not to be able to read–what is it that the man who does not read, although he has the ability to, imagines he has over the man who cannot read? To read or not to read has been the moving force of civilization, I remember having heard, I think. Although, where it was, I cannot say; but I probably could imagine accurately enough if I called on myself to do so.
I have the tendency to sub vocalize. I am poet and must feel the words, the weight of the words on my tongue (you do, you know, feel them there, their weight); yes, the texture of the words, the shimmering motion of words–and there are words that do not shimmer in motion . . . the fires and motions of the soul, I believe in soul, it’s almost a must that I do.
Sight and sound and movement are not one–why one? What am I trying to capture? Why then do I use a metaphor of light for motion . . . a streetlight blaring through a window like a stampede of elephants, I recall having written, I forget in which piece, was it in a novel I remember having rewritten how many times–the variations in theme I imagined having published together, at what date in my chronology would that have happened, if it were to happen at all? Yes, the perpetual revisions, revisions, revisions–what is it that we do see again–the irony remains in how there is often so little gain in the again and again we try. Rewriting taking on the role of seeing again, means what to him, to me, before the page in hand with a pencil to mark it up . . . this word, that word, which word where, why, how so to say what needs to be said even above what I want to say. In the beginning there was the word?
Did you know that a tree falling in the woods does not make a sound if no one is there to hear it fall, having fallen in silence? To be silent or not to be silent; how to be silent? I grew up when parents had abandoned, although not entirely, the notion that children should be seen and not heard; unheard, muted? Gagged? We were permitted much our parents would not have been . . . God did create the world with a word, did He not . . . He, She and It are one.
What was it I was trying to say about the tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear it having fallen? No ears; no sound. Yes, that’s right; no ears to make the sound, no sound. Sound is created in the ear. What the tree does, though, by having fallen is make a compression wave, which would then be translated into sound by the ear if there were ears to receive the compression wave . . . yes? No? You disagree? How so? Why am I asking you?
So, what then do we listen to when all of us are trees falling in a forrest bereft of ears? How so the babel that continues . . . there is something other than just sound in words spoken, no?
“God is greater than all the books supposedly by Him,” She Says. He says nothing. He listens.
What more is there to say, would there be to say if . . .?
The Falling Leaf Review 