The way the world is full
Of people craving a context
An enunciation a church
Or a bar some so full and
Some so empty as at the birth
Of a word the mouths gather round
To lick it clean and lift it up
To push it out into the world
To be used and betrayed
By its opposite equal
Nothing as strong
Nothing as feeble
Words that can only be everything
Or nothing to people
2 comments:
one might go mad, or at least travel full circle like wittgenstein, trying to understand the nature of language, never mind its origins.
we use it as a bridge toward and it becomes a bridge away from. language is the fluctuating bridge, or the white cane we blind ones use to touch the world.
again this morning i think of wittgenstein and how his later work refuted his earlier. i think of how he recognized the organic nature of language and the necessity of context, movement and change.
how movement plays against (and with) this rilke!
I am so afraid of people's words.
They describe so distinctly everything:
And this they call dog and that they call house,
here the start and there the end.
I worry about their mockery with words,
they know everything, what will be, what was;
no mountain is still miraculous;
and their house and yard lead right up to God.
I want to warn and object: Let the things be!
I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.
But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.
This is how you kill.
–Rainer Maria Rilke
Annemarie S. Kidder translation
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