MYSTIC ALPHABET
Nothing's really soundless:
a calm lake, rimas dissolutas,
rehearses the memory of its waves.
Bough and branch
accent the holographic sky.
Even rock, proud mummer,
articulates the drama of an ancient plosion.
How shall we learn this listening—
snow falling on snow,
distillate phoneme, white vowel,
mother tongue presuming no auricle?
We're all word-wired,
transmission-trucked, hitched
to the electronic pulse
of a quick delivery.
We've forgotten, or
there's another deeper structure
the linguists haven't figured out yet.
If the deaf can sense vibration...
If the deaf know a sign as a word...
Who's to say silence all these millenniums
hasn't been offering its palm?
Dumb as a stone, I think I could begin
a little lip reading. Master
the shine-exact English of the stars.
I think I could interpret
the delicate tremble of their light.
—Anne Coray
____
from Soon the Wind (Finishing Line Press)