I

Consider: 

Energy of thought is a palpable force

And must be expressed, shared.

Pointing and patting, grunting, jumping,

Pictures!

Have limitations in interpretation.

So Language evolves - a living 'thing',

Also much limited, but better.

 

We honour the Ancients, those storytellers and bards

For their individual voices.

Their passion , their knowledge.

Their commitment to inform, to teach,

Passing on tribal memories and skills.

But they had limited numbers of pupils.

These scholars died; their students died.

The web of information was truncated - select and discrete.

 

And then, WRITING!

Here, there and everywhere!

The human drive for influence beyond death.

Symbols scratched from mud to stone - from papyrus to paper -

Power more permanence

Than a person can effect in a lifetime.

And yet, communication across Death

Via the 'written word' as a distinctive Idea

Is a privilege we barely notice anymore.

 

II

Writing renders ideas mentally concrete,

Cross-pollinating civilizations and cultures.

To bind together, or to break apart.

It invokes contemplation at the reader's preferred pace.

Writing struggles in the current culture

Of instant sight and sound, in COLOUR!

On! Off! On! Off! On! Off! On! On! On!

Hugely effective for fast  'facts'

(Often instantly in - instantly out!)

Not so conducive to contemplative judgment.

We, the 'language consumers', make the choice.

There is still – actually – choice!

If we don't get intellectually lazy.

Time to sort and sift information is hard to do

With the mash of media

Full of minimal fact and much opinion.

 

Today we cast off into galaxies to plunder infinite space,

Or probe exponentially the ‘space of Nothing’ .

We excel in the physical, visible and invisible.

But still, we barely skim the power of language.

'A picture is worth a thousand words!'

Is a famous quote, but not necessarily true.

It is only a 'visual presentation', easily manipulated

Biased for purpose.

 

As we are now, so we were in ages gone.

More than pots or tombs or tools or towers

The written word bequeaths our heritage.

Language bridges humanity!

Past and present:

The human Spirit!

 

The related topic/s of 'Art' and 'Architecture'

Is/are wide open as rebuttal to this 'splash of spleen'!

Should anyone care to wade in.

It might be fun!

Cynthia Buell Thomas