metonymy4u

When there are no yesterdays that concern a people languishing in sorrow,
no consolation for loss. O cantata of memory and morrow
what can I do for you? Draw a string across the land between us,
a tin can phone to call after midnights, and whisper only
secrets so that no one shall know our quest. Is it a farce? Did
we discover something no one else could have? More than
the laws of physics that opposites attract each other across
a gulf of instantaneous causality? No corroboration.

Or dawn, my dream.

A daughter of mine once told me she didn’t trouble such rules,
didn’t much mind having to travel up one side of a mountain
and down the other, reciting poetry all the way. Not like a puppet
on a string at all, really. She said that mathematics just shows
us the workings of our own thoughts. For her a language more primitive
than ours never existed. In it we talked about like things routinely.
She was a puzzle. Always making light of whatever I said.
Always intelligent and kind. I’m a mystery even
to myself—she used to say—you try and think without words!

Just you try it.