Linguist
If we lived in a world where bells
truly say "ding-dong" and where "moo"
is a rather neat thing
said by a cow,
I could believe you could believe
that these sounds I make in the air
and these shapes with which I blacken white paper
have some reference
to the thoughts in my mind
and the feelings in the thoughts.
As things are,
if I were to gaze in your eyes and say
"bow-wow" or "quack", you must take that to be
a despairing anthology of praises,
a concentration of all the opposites
of reticence, a capsule
of my meaning of meaning
that I can no more write down
than I could spell the sound of the sigh
I would then utter, before
dingdonging and mooing my way
through all the lexicons and languages
of imprecision.
poem by Norman MacCaig
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian
