Laments
Words for when language fails.
Dear Friends,
I am upset.
I am not thinking well. My mind is skittery. I start to do something and then forget why I’ve opened that document, or that book, or that screen. It’s not distraction or a problem of attention; instead it feels like most of my mind, unconscious and half-conscious, is taken up with trying to trace an inner thicket of distress and dismay.
I decided to try an experiment: to simply write down what I believe is happening. What are the facts? What are my opinions? I thought it would be easy. I thought it would only take a few minutes. I began a list, the kind of list you have seen everywhere these days: names of the dead, names of the disappeared, terrible events, and actions, and speeches. A strange resistance rose up in the form of waves of sleepiness and confusion. Language kept withering in my mouth.
So I cannot offer you my opinion, my take, or my solutions. I don’t have the language for it, and right now it seems I don’t have the heart for statements. We all know there are ways to resist and to help: joining protests, striking, calling representatives, supporting mutual aid efforts. Most importantly, we can gather with others in person, in groups large and small, and share what we know of the truth. Community and connection will bring us through.
What language that does come has its own wild logic, unaccountable.
— Sal
¶
Gentle me, gentle me like you gentle a horse. Do not break me. Gentle me with your compositions or with mine. Gentle me with the terrible, as in the unthinkable moments of history or the equally unthinkable moments of the present. Do you have food tonight? Do you have food for your children? Was someone you love shot tonight, or might you lose your own arm in the darkness. It’s not just fear, it’s the simple actuality of happening. I close my eyes, I cast my closed gaze downwards. I cannot close my ears. Every time you ask the question I hear the question. Every. Single. Time. Of course, you do not know that, you have no way of knowing. I imagine that you think me indifferent, that my modes of being do not conform to your ideas of how to speak. That is all part of it. That is all part of the listening. Or, you might say, of the composition. I put my hand to my mouth in the image. I hold a photographic apparatus in the image. The mirror is a time machine. The face of the present is a caricature of the the idea of the face of the past. Every time I breathe in there is some sort of pain among the bones and muscles. That’s just part of breathing. I send food one day, I don’t send food the next. More often than you know, I sleep. I seek my own pleasure, like any creature. And a sorrowing pleasure it is.
¶
Language is lost, and what could restore me? I open my mouth and snakes and frogs pour out. Every snake and every frog. If there’s a child in the story, the child cannot be found. If there is a couple they cross. First they come close and then they are torn away. If it’s a story about travel, the traveler never arrives. If it’s a story about the past, it can only be read in the future. Despair, despair, the hero cries. The heroine is mistaken for heroin. The babe wants to live, but no one dare touch her. It is night, and there is a single light overhead. Someone steps into the light and out again. Someone else waits in the darkness, and so we don’t know who they are. This is a story about a sacrifice, the poor pig, the dry frog, the lonely wolves, the shedding snake. Nothing happens that you can see.
¶
I was the sacrifice placed in the palm of the hand. I was the rock that felt each nail. I was the moon who saw nothing of what went on below. I was the child who was a child. Where was the desert that hid its fruits? Where was the hut filled with nothing but gems? Where were you when the land rang with sound? We were with the snakes in their burrows. We were letting our fingers touch, each to each. We were whispering by the reluctant fire. If you had carried a spade we could have found the cold spring. If you had left your garments behind we would have known what songs to sing. If you brought what is bitter we would have grown sweet. I was traveling all night under the shadow of mountains. You were poling your boat on the black waters. Where were the old tales? We were not meeting, we were not meeting. If you had remembered. If I had remembered. If we had not allowed ourselves… I cannot say it. I cannot eat the frogs and snakes that come from your mouth. You cannot eat the chunks of gold that fall from mine. Every day is colder than the last. The compasses point north until we are spinning. Fall down, or do not fall down. Spinning and falling. I was bitter and you were laughing. You were lost in memory and I was singing again. Singing again. Singing again. Did you say stinging? I said stinging. I thought you said it was ringing, no, raining. Did you think I would hide under the trees? Were there trees? I cannot imagine any trees in this place. There is nothing in this place but dark and cold. There is only one companion, and that hand is your hand.
How are you faring in these times? Write in and let me know.
Holy wow this some good poetry. Uff.
same