reading

signs in a year of strange weather

Eventually a road sign may tell you,
here is where it ends. You watch for it,
a reason for the spin to stop––driving
without destination just to get out
the freeze in the cooler packed before
dawn.

Bare back beneath shower spray,
tender beneath hands a bare hope
suffusing talk of what will
come when the numbers
hit, when one day

waiting––a future makes sense
like renovation blueprints
in home restoration shows
following mouse droppings
and mildew to magnificent views

––of the lake, the trampoline,
the long yard, the car, fire pit.
Circle us. No more staring
at the map

like it will explain how
to go from wet wood to flame
hot enough to roast wedding pig.
No more extra shots

of gas station caffeine, extra sweet
––first hit of a story where it all works
out in the end.

No more pretending interest
in craps table logic of six and eight;
fish and bait, how bass come

for worms if you grow them;
no more growing worms in yards
as food for fish approaching feasts

here where the next meal
is so much closer now
to the last.

A Word Beyond

Learning by signs.

Inspired by this morning’s reading, from Augustine’s The Trinity, as translated by Stephen McKenna.

All things are learned by signs, and every sign is also a thing. Each thing must be understood just as it is, but a sign may only be known by appreciating how it signifies something else.

Smoke needs no special will to signify fire, neither do the tracks of an animal to point to its presence. Same goes for naked expression of emotion on the face. Words, on the other hand. Also consider sounds of trumpet, flute, harp, and drum, each with its own layered invocations to nuanced representation.

A vibration in the ear passes quickly; hence, a need for letters. Here is where pride limits those who would build a tower to claim the heavens as their own. In retribution, voices and signs in the rubble of Babel are dissonant. We can neither hear nor read each other, fully.

Allegory, enigma, parable, irony. Recognition of these tropes may reveal what is hidden––and yet, never more than through a glass, darkly. Some thoughts are speeches of the heart. It is what leaves the mouth, not what enters it, that may defile or edify.

Speech is one thing, sight another. To reflect is to make these one. How will you understand those words that belong to no language?

Exit mobile version
%%footer%%