by Jim Murdoch
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels…
– 1 Corinthians 13:1
There should be a word for what we were.
and maybe another for what we became.
And I suppose there would have to be one
to describe the becoming and, of course,
our unbecoming. Maybe two to be safe.
There were words we used every day,
we might call them “everyday words,”
but they were clearly the wrong words
or if not wrong per se then insufficient
or inadequate but they were all we had.
What does big mean or long or broad?
Well, it depends. Everything is relative.
Honestly, language does us no favours.
Meaning should be renamed gistness
or fluxness because isness is fleeting.
Pleasure is not happiness even if
happiness is frequently pleasurable
And that is the problem, imprecision.
There are no joyometers or scales to
measure the depths of our emotions.
When God confused the languages
people always took that to mean
he created many different tongues.
What he did was more insidious:
he literally confused language.
Not one single word can be trusted.
In any language.
Except maybe the tongues of angels.
Jim Murdoch lives down the road from where they filmed Gregory’s Girl which, for some odd reason, pleases him no end. He’s been writing poetry for fifty years for which he blames Larkin. Who probably blamed Hardy. Jim has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.
Agape Review 