We have dreamedof touching each other,
bare nerve to naked
synapse, one common
language conquering
the inevitable solitude
of living beyond
the bounds of one
animal past.
We have forgotten
how Aleph was meant
to capture the silver
horns of the sacred herd,
gift of the ebbing moon
a crescent left to hold the dark
terror at bay. We set off
seeking the language
of creation founding
artifice on chaos.
Do you see
the confused
etchings of gull
prints on the beach,
the cuneiform
of winter sun falling
through green,
painting scripture
on firs? Let us speak
the language of trees,
chant the wisdom
of the sea birds.
Shall we go out
under a new moon,
no guide save the cold
distant stars? Shall we trace
the arcane Brahmi forms
that we discover in ancient
sands on the shore?
And when the sun
illuminates our texts,
shall we have learned
to read Sanskrit
in the dark?
bare nerve to naked
synapse, one common
language conquering
the inevitable solitude
of living beyond
the bounds of one
animal past.
We have forgotten
how Aleph was meant
to capture the silver
horns of the sacred herd,
gift of the ebbing moon
a crescent left to hold the dark
terror at bay. We set off
seeking the language
of creation founding
artifice on chaos.
Do you see
the confused
etchings of gull
prints on the beach,
the cuneiform
of winter sun falling
through green,
painting scripture
on firs? Let us speak
the language of trees,
chant the wisdom
of the sea birds.
Shall we go out
under a new moon,
no guide save the cold
distant stars? Shall we trace
the arcane Brahmi forms
that we discover in ancient
sands on the shore?
And when the sun
illuminates our texts,
shall we have learned
to read Sanskrit
in the dark?
3 comments:
P.B.,
Every time I read this poem, I discover more. Looking up some of the words helps me understand the meaning--Aleph, cuneiform, Brahmi--it's great to continue learning... I also have a fascination with language and how it all began, and all of the many languages that exist. And our dream "of touching each other..."
Some of the imagery is exquisite, especially: "...the cuneiform/of winter sun falling/through green,painting scripture/on firs..."
I feel I'm still finding meaning here, and will continue as I reread.
PB, I realize that this was written fairly quickly in response to your own assignment. I don't know why you picked this idea (learning to read Sanskrit) - because it sounded cool or because you know something about Sanskrit. In any case, I did read it carefully and here are my reactions. I'm afraid all I'm doing is raising questions, not making constructive suggestions. Partly this is because I wasn't able to grasp what this was all about. There are lots of powerful images, but for me they are pieces that haven't been put together into a coherent whole yet. I'd be curious to know what you wanted to convey, how the structure and imagery were intended to further that message.
We have dreamed
of touching each other,
bare nerve to naked
synapse, one common
language conquering
the inevitable solitude
of living beyond
the bounds of one
animal past we share.
1. The first three lines had a sensual image for me - dreaming (longing?) to touch, bare, naked.
2. the next three move to communication on a different level - common language (much more cerebral) conquering solitude of living (each individual separated from the other) (conquering being a very warlike, masculine image whereas a language, the ability to speak to one another seems like it calls for a less hostile, more feminine metaphor)
3. the last lines - not sure what this means? 'one animal past we share' - does this imply evolution? Is this about reincarnation? The sharing seems to contradict our 'solitude of living.' And, for me, the binary choice of 'solitude of living' vs. some new unity you suggest coming from language is a false dichotomy. Animals communicate without a formal, verbal language, they aren't living isolated solitary lives. And in the next stanza you'll move not simply to verbal language, but to written language. Certainly we can communicate without written language. Written language allows us to do things we can't do with just oral language (develop a repository of knowledge that can be checked, for example), but it certainly is not needed to 'conquer the solitude.'
We have forgotten
how Aleph was meant
to capture the silver
horns of sacred herd,
gift of the ebbing moon
a crescent left to hold the dark
terror at bay. We set off
seeking the language
of creation founding
artifice on chaos.
In the first stanza we are moving from some animal past. Here we seem to be looking back from when? Today? 'We have forgotten'
I don't know what the connection is between Aleph and silver horns or gift of ebbing moon and whether it is the crescent that is holding off the dark terror or the Aleph? What is the sacred herd and why are the horns silver? Why is it a gift of the moon? Or are you suggesting the aleph is shaped like the horn and the crescent moon? The Hebrew aleph is not that simple a shape.
Time again is a problem. When is it that we set off seeking the language of creation? This, it would seem, would have to come before our animal past, since animals came about during creation. And yes, the bible says, "in the beginning was the word" but in stanza one you already have humans dreaming of touching through language to overcome their isolation. Did the people and their animal past exist before creation? But if in the beginning was the word, language would have preceded the creation of the animals and people.
Do you see
the confused
etchings of gull
prints on the beach,
the cuneiform
of winter sun falling
through green,
painting scripture
on firs? Let us speak
the language of trees,
chant the wisdom
of the sea birds.
This one was hard for me to follow. First, in terms of imagery - it seems to me that gull prints look a lot more like cuneiform than they do etchings or than the shadows look like cuneiform. I'm not sure what you are trying to convey here.. Is this supposed to be part of the evolution of writing? But the cuneiform comes, historically, well before the Aleph of the previous stanza. Also, in this stanza we are going to speak the language of trees, whereas in the first stanza, not even the animals could speak (language conquering the inevitable solitude...animal past)
What wisdom do sea birds have? (Sea) Chant(y) works well with sea birds, but the overall conceit eludes me. They have instincts, yes, but wisdom? Are the sea birds supposed to be symbolic of something that I am missing?
Shall we go out
under a new moon,
no guide save the cold
distant stars? Shall we trace
the arcane Brahmi forms
that we discover in ancient
sands on the shore?
And when the sun
illuminates our texts,
shall we have learned
to read Sanskrit
in the dark?
Where (when?) are we here? Is this today? Why 'arcane Brahmi forms'? Yes, I looked it up and Brahmi is the early beginnings of many languages including Sanskrit. I sometimes supsect you drop in words because you just like, even if they don't integrally fit in the poem. If these forms were written in 'ancient sands on the shore' wouldn't they have been washed away long ago? Or is this a link back to the shorebird etchings?
There is something cool about the paradox of the sun illuminating our texts so we can read in the dark. But beyond that, what does it mean and how does it fit in the poem? And what does "shall we have learned to read Sanskrit' mean? It seems to me more like a game where you were asked to take ten random words and fit them into a sentence. Yes, you have a poem that makes grammatical sense using the required words, but what does it mean in the greater scheme of things?
Steve(AK)
Thanks for your comments on this. Very interesting and helpful to me. Such very different responses tells me quite a bit about this that I didn't know before.
Steve, the truth is, I really didn't have anything in mind when I posted that exercise except for my fascination with the origin of language, and how so many of them are connected in one way or another far in the past. I think Sanskrit is a fascinating writing system and the languages that have some roots in it are really astounding to me. (English would be one of those for those who don't know.)
Honestly, I can't claim to fully understand this myself. This is one of my mystic poems. I write them sometimes after mingling several ideas in my mind then letting them coalesce so to speak. I don't know where the amalgam comes from for certain, maybe just my subconscious, maybe somewhere spiritual, or maybe just the ramblings of a lunatic. Your guess is as good as mine. :)
I think Gina's response to this though less scholarly is in fact the way the poem should be read, a more spontaneous and even instinctive reading. None of this is intended literally. I'm fairly sure of that.
I do not know how to read Sanskrit, I wish I did, but I do know something about it and about its predecessors. I have spent a good deal of time reading about the origins of language, linguistics generally, and the origins of written script and the meanings of the individual characters. If it's a subject that interests you too, there's a great website for it: http://www.ancientscripts.com/index.html
The Aleph I was referring to was not the character from Hebrew but rather the Phoenician one that became the Old Hebrew Alef. The Aramaic script also originated with the Phoenician one. The character looked like a capital letter A laid on its side and was in fact a simplified form of an early pictograph that meant Ox. The sacred herd would be the cattle of whichever moon goddess you like. The idea goes back a long way and was picked up by many cultures most notably the Minoans. The importance of the moon to ancient cultures is clear enough. The coincidental fact that the horns of cattle could resemble the crescent moon probably had a lot to do with the association between cattle and divinity. There is also a tradition in Hebrew texts that Alef was humble (just as oxen are thought of as humble actually). Finally, there's a tradition in Hebrew again that the shape Alef signifies the infinite future before us and the unknowable past before "creation" behind us. The secret knowledge that only God may have.
Sorry for going on so. Heh I'm sort of a nut about language and language history. Some other odd bits, I was picturing a beach after the tide has begun to go out, where the gulls have left a network of their prints in the sand. To me those confused prints can sometimes look like glyphs (well, if you squint your eyes a little maybe). The cuneiform from the sunlight on the trees at the end of day I came up with by actually observing how the sun filtering through the evergreens up here can cast shadows here and there offset with golden highlights that can look a little like wedged markings or cuneiform.
I chose Brahmi not because I liked the word but because for me it did fit. I wanted a reference there to the precursor of Sanskrit precisely because it is somewhat arcane (just as reading gull prints on the beach would be if they are intelligible of course).
You left a lot of very good comments, Steve. I just responded to some of the items I think are key to this. I will certainly spend some time thinking over your observations when I'm ready to revise this. Thanks very much.
Post a Comment