<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;">The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; line-height: normal;">How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,<br>
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,<br>
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words<br>
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according<br>
to which nation. French has no word for home,<br>
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people<br>
in northern India is dying out because their ancient<br>
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost<br>
vocabularies that might express some of what<br>
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would<br>
finally explain why the couples on their tombs<br>
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands<br>
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,<br>
they seemed to be business records. But what if they<br>
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve<br>
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.<br>
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,<br>
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.<br>
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts<br>
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred<br>
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what<br>
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this<br>
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script<br>
is not language but a map. What we feel most has<br>
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.</p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jack Gilbert</div>
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