"as I speak he is freezing
my words he will melt them
to listen and listen
to the water of my voice
when he is the last
speaker of his language"
- Agha Shahid Ali
He wakes to find it's snowing, and he's the only one who knows the code.
He pulls on his overcoat, steps out into the yard. Snowflakes drift past, tiny packets of information, each one unique.
Where others see forgetting he sees pattern, beauty; his practiced hands finding, always, the snowflakes he seeks, the lightness of them on his fingertips that he deciphers into words.
With his eyes closed, the air is a braille of impressions. He has only to touch these poems to feel them melt away.
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1 comment:
AAh, I don't know how I missed this. Weirdly sad I feel for this guy now :-).
Reminds me of someone I know - whenever she visits an old, old temple she touches the pillar-stones, closes her eyes and 'feels' what songs have been sung there through the centuries; almost as if the songs tattoo themselves into the texture of the rock.
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