What People Are Saying

Do you ever watch and listen to someone,
And get struck with the
Clumsy, primitive miracle
Of human speech?

What are people really saying when they talk?

What do these uvular clicks,
These moist plosives
Framed in a vocal-cord shimmy,
And the snakelike workings of the tongue
(Which we take to convey the essence of our meaning
But are only symbols) --
What do they really mean?

We can never say
What we most profoundly want to say.
Our deepest meanings
Never surface.

If we are made
b'tzelem Elohim --
In the Image of God --
Then our words
Are but images of
True meaning.

We live in a mirror.

It is a dimension
From which
Only the
Most Determined
Emerge.

Are you determined
To emerge
Into the realm
Of pure meaning?

--Mr. Gobley