Opaque Talk, Robert Newman

Judith Nelson, Untitled

 

 

Opaque Talk

 

Compared to the transparency of birdsong, our talk is opaque because we are obliged to search for the truth instead of being it. John Berger

 

What did they know those old scholars
davening through the dim light
any bit of fleeting luck
guarded by their wives’ kinahoras
Staring thick lensed at the curved script
for half submerged codes that wriggle
like tadpoles and slither
through cupped hands
The need to hope keeps history
porous and spongy
amid the unrelenting facts.
We part the babble to shape a glimpse
into a layered thought.
Finches chirp in the cherry trees.

_________________
Robert Newman

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