The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart: [ A Poem by Jack Gilbert ]
How astonishing it is that language can almost
mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
Get it wrong. We say bread and it means
according to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure.
A people in northern India is dying out
because their ancient tongue has no words for endearment.
I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan
texts would finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the
are smiling. And maybe not. When the
thousands of mysterious Sumerian
tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records.
But what if they are poems or psalms?
My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian
goats standing silent in the morning light.O Lord, thou art
slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley
lithe under the wind's labor. Her breasts
are six white oxen loaded with boltsof long-fibered Egyptian
cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of
thuya are whatmy body wants to say to your
body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral
Minoan script is not a language but a map. What
we feel most hasno name but amber, archers,
cinnamon, horses and birds.
