[lit-ideas] Sunday Poem
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 10:01:42 -0600
Amanuensis
(inspired by John McCreery)
I'm a sound catcher,
called in by those who need
to see what they've said.
Taught by master craftsmen,
I know how to fashion springes
to catch phonemes.
Let loose your plosives, voiceless
and aspirated,
bring me your labials, sibilants, stops,
send forth your fricatives,
no sound can escape
my graphemes,
give my your vowels --
monophthongal, diphthongal, triphthongal --
none is beyond the strokes of my pen,
no sound beyond my ken to catch.
The spoken word dies just beyond the lips that gave it birth.
A word that may have taken a lifetime in the making
can only last one hearing long and then is gone.
Did God really say: "Let there be"?
Our existence an echo of that utterance?
We know only that at some point in time
some amanuensis wrote that down,
wrote it, and being writ, it will remain
so long as writing lasts.
Mike Geary
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