Selections
1
Before there was language, there was the word.
11
At first all art was religious art,
Distinguished from the tools that dug the holes,
Connected the wooden pieces to build our shelters,
Made the weapons that brought us meat and kept our enemies at bay,
Clothed our fragile bodies,
By the fact that our Gods were purely ours.
Not found in front of us,
Inescapably there,
But found inside us
In the part of ourselves that lived above the heavens
And would never die.
12
She saw it in his eyes
The wish to see her as more, much, much more
Than the mating, growing the tribe and dying
That ignorant nature demanded.
She saw his struggle
For the words
Words that did not yet exist
That would change her, transform her
From meat to magic.
And he found them.
And song was born.
And she accepted him.
15
The Tower of Babel, the first skyscraper,
The first time the gods admitted they were afraid of us,
In their penthouse hangouts with a view of everything -
Hills, mountains, cities and all the little people living their little lives.
All of a sudden, we wanted a piece of the action,
Not content with huts, glorified tents that reminded us of our wandering ways.
We wanted to fly too. We had to be stopped.
“Hey, we’ll scatter their languages.”
Bad idea.
Words are the building blocks of thought, language the cement.
Every language creates its own unique approaches, its own artifacts.
Now instead of having the little pests coming at them from one predictable direction
We were singing thirty songs at once - New York, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, Rio.
They should have let us keep the one little tower.
We might have been satisfied.
19
There are no
Millimeters,
No inches,
No meters,
No feet,
No kilometers,
No miles.
I am not six feet and one inch tall.
The sun is not 92.96 million miles from earth,
Never was, never will be.
We made all that up to help us deal with the situation we found ourselves in.
The universe doesn’t care
About us or anything else.
The universe is as dumb as the rocks it’s made from.
Believing an inch is an inch
Is as big an act of faith as believing Jesus walked on water.
Rowboats, ferries, ocean liners, water skis -
We walk on water all the time
But only because we believe.
26
We created ourselves.
The word was with us
From the beginning.
The biological underpinnings
Are a matter of
Indifference
To what makes our lives
Worth living.
Nothing
Is determined.
All
Is possible.
If we succeed in destroying
Ourselves,
The word will emerge
With someone else.
It cannot be stopped.
It can only be ridden
Like a
Truck,
A wave,
A storm,
A lover.
After there was language,
There will be
The word.
from "Before there Was Language
1
Before there was language, there was the word.
11
At first all art was religious art,
Distinguished from the tools that dug the holes,
Connected the wooden pieces to build our shelters,
Made the weapons that brought us meat and kept our enemies at bay,
Clothed our fragile bodies,
By the fact that our Gods were purely ours.
Not found in front of us,
Inescapably there,
But found inside us
In the part of ourselves that lived above the heavens
And would never die.
12
She saw it in his eyes
The wish to see her as more, much, much more
Than the mating, growing the tribe and dying
That ignorant nature demanded.
She saw his struggle
For the words
Words that did not yet exist
That would change her, transform her
From meat to magic.
And he found them.
And song was born.
And she accepted him.
15
The Tower of Babel, the first skyscraper,
The first time the gods admitted they were afraid of us,
In their penthouse hangouts with a view of everything -
Hills, mountains, cities and all the little people living their little lives.
All of a sudden, we wanted a piece of the action,
Not content with huts, glorified tents that reminded us of our wandering ways.
We wanted to fly too. We had to be stopped.
“Hey, we’ll scatter their languages.”
Bad idea.
Words are the building blocks of thought, language the cement.
Every language creates its own unique approaches, its own artifacts.
Now instead of having the little pests coming at them from one predictable direction
We were singing thirty songs at once - New York, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, Rio.
They should have let us keep the one little tower.
We might have been satisfied.
19
There are no
Millimeters,
No inches,
No meters,
No feet,
No kilometers,
No miles.
I am not six feet and one inch tall.
The sun is not 92.96 million miles from earth,
Never was, never will be.
We made all that up to help us deal with the situation we found ourselves in.
The universe doesn’t care
About us or anything else.
The universe is as dumb as the rocks it’s made from.
Believing an inch is an inch
Is as big an act of faith as believing Jesus walked on water.
Rowboats, ferries, ocean liners, water skis -
We walk on water all the time
But only because we believe.
26
We created ourselves.
The word was with us
From the beginning.
The biological underpinnings
Are a matter of
Indifference
To what makes our lives
Worth living.
Nothing
Is determined.
All
Is possible.
If we succeed in destroying
Ourselves,
The word will emerge
With someone else.
It cannot be stopped.
It can only be ridden
Like a
Truck,
A wave,
A storm,
A lover.
After there was language,
There will be
The word.
from "Before there Was Language