Words

This piece reflects some of my thoughts on the impossibility of using language to express the eternal, the infinite, oneness and similar ideas, the nature of selfhood, and the impulse to create art. Thanks so much for reading, and I’d welcome any comments.

“The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

Tao Te Ching

Putting it into words
hides the essence
of what it is,
And yet I can’t stop striving
to capture in words,
that which I’ve known only in silence.

It’s a losing battle,
this linguistic pursuit,
and one which I’d do well to end.

But something compels me
which I don’t truly understand,
A creative impulse,
A habit of production,
A barely flickering hope
that words can communicate truth
(or at least a faint imitation of it —
a copy of an ideal, as Plato might’ve said),
And a fear that without setting my thoughts
on a page — like engravings on stone,
they will vanish…
like a wisp of wind at twilight.

Though I know too
that stone
crumbles with the years,
and returns inevitably to the earth
from which it came —
as all things must.

So words, ah words!
Like all worldly formations
or saṅkhāras in Buddhism,
Words themselves are ephemeral,
and can be etched no more permanently,
than a summer breeze,
or a sunflower in bloom,
or a windowpane pointed to the sky.

It should make me laugh, it’s so absurd,
This desire to name that which cannot be named,
To frame that which cannot be framed,
To claim ownership of that which is
simply happening,
Like taking a blank canvas,
and superimposing an image of freedom,
to be signed,
and hung,
in a gallery, alongside other fixtures of freedom.

It would be wiser, I know,
to remain wordless,
and to let the presence of silence
speak of the timeless backdrop to the world.

But though human creations
may strive for,
yet can never reach,
the eternal,
I find there’s beauty
in the impossible endeavour,
  so on and on
    I go.