Sermon on Language

Painting of "Decoded Language" by Paul Normansell


Sermon on Language

I.
This - I mean whatever comes to mind when you
read this - is an organization - from the proto-
Greek organ-grindo, "the music swells, the monkey
dances"- dedicated to enshrining reality deep in
the heart of itself. Its code name is Language,
and it was invented a war or two ago - actually
during the Second Gobi War, the one that ended
the paleolothic - to con- fer on sunlight such
blessings as "It is sunning," or "The sun is
raining," or "Shine happens," according to the
by-laws of your local lodge. For individual
languages - like Basque or Xhosa or Cantonese
or French - are in fact created and sustained
as lodges of the ancient freemasonic society of
Speakers, the ones with Language on their side,
the so-called humans. All other societies -
and every form of society- is subsidiary to this,
this elegant and persuasive artifact which self-embeds
its rules and by-laws at once in every member who
pays the dues of breath - what we call speaking.
You do not have to think very long or hard to
learn that all mysteries are ensconced in language
and extractable from language, and that obedience
to the intricacies of language in turn reveals the
exact astro-dynamic efflorescent energy of place
and circumstance we nickname Truth. The con- juncture.
The lock. The habit the heart wears in the market,
the song it hums in the bathroom, the text encoded
in its midnight snores. Language is astrology indoors,
it is the moon in the bed- room and the sun in your pocket,
its rules are your rules and there is hardly a rumor -
though there is a rumor - of anyone disobedient to
its prescriptions. Timid Nietzsche and meek Blake
followed its laws like lambs, and Lenin lay down with
De Maistre to graze on public language. Only the one -
there was one - who woke up to the sleep of named things
ever broke the lodge law and got away with it. All the
way away. Faint- ing, we follow.

II.
This -
I mean whatever comes to mind when you read this -
is an organization -
from the proto-Greek organ-grindo,
"the music swells, the monkey dances"-
dedicated to enshrining reality deep
in the heart of itself.
Its code name is Language,
and it was invented a war or two ago -
actually during the Second Gobi War,
the one that ended the paleolothic -
to con- fer on sunlight such blessings as
"It is sunning," or "The sun is raining,"
or "Shine happens,"
according to the by-laws of your local lodge.
For individual languages -
like Basque or Xhosa or Cantonese or French -
are in fact created and sustained as lodges
of the ancient freemasonic society of Speakers,
the ones with Language on their side,
the so-called humans.
All other societies -and every form of society-
is subsidiary to this,
this elegant and persuasive artifact
which self-embeds its rules and by-laws at once
in every member who pays the dues of breath -
what we call speaking.
You do not have to think very long or hard
to learn that all mysteries are ensconced
in language and extractable from language,
and that obedience to the intricacies of language
in turn reveals the exact astro-dynamic
efflorescent energy of place and circumstance
we nickname Truth.
The con- juncture. The lock. The habit
the heart wears in the market,
the song it hums in the bathroom,
the text encoded in its midnight snores.
Language is astrology indoors,
it is the moon in the bed- room
and the sun in your pocket,
its rules are your rules
and there is hardly a rumor -
though there is a rumor -
of anyone disobedient to its prescriptions.
Timid Nietzsche and meek Blake followed
its laws like lambs,
and Lenin lay down with De Maistre
to graze on public language.
Only the one - there was one -
who woke up to the sleep of named things
ever broke the lodge law and got away with it.
All the way away.
Faint- ing, we follow.



Robert Kelly
20 April 1993

Posted over on RIF/T

1. Kelly's prose poem
2. Line Breaks by Glenn Buttkus