Vox Clamantis....
Bartolo passed through town every December when he knew that most people had returned from work up north. He always came by selling his poems. By the end of the first day, they were almost sold out because the names of the people in the town appeared in the poems. And when he read them aloud it was something emotional and serious. I recall that one time he told the people to read the poems out loud because the spoken word was the seed of love in the darkness.
….porque la voz era la semilla del amor en la oscuridad.
-Tomás Rivera, …y no se lo tragó la tierra (…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him)
-Tomás Rivera, …y no se lo tragó la tierra (…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him)
posted by Arturo Vasquez @ 5:19 PM
3 Comments:
It is perhaps the greatest shame of our culture that verbal forms are no longer prominent. Most conversations are curt and unornamented, almost like the written discourse that now predominate.
Perhaps it is only the voice that can exorcise many of the demons, doubts, and distractions that torment us. Only the voice gives liberation to the soul. That is why the recitation and singing of prayers, poems, and other works aloud is so important.
An old idea is that those deep in sin cannot speak (not coherently). The Flood generations spoke in gibberish, they babbled and could not communicate, and the Flood - with the ability of water to babble nonsensically, to not give heed in voice and movement to other persons - was the physical representation of the state this deeply sinful people were already in. Some write that Noah and his family were not only banned from procreation in the ark, they were also struck dumb: "The Lord 'shut him in'" in Genesis 7:16, for people cannot create while God is destroying, and the ability to communicate is a part of creation and re-creation.
Thus the Psalmist says in Psalm 142:7, "Free me from prison that I may praise Your name."
Thought it tied into your reflection on the importance of the word, and what muteness and gibberish mean.
Thanks, AG. Perhaps it is the proliferation of words that is most destructive to true meaning. (Babbling.)There is a veritable flood of information that torments our society...
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