When at a loss for words—during, perhaps,a time of want or desire, when one’s bodyis overwhelmed by light, as if by the effectof Ketamine or MDMA, when overwhelmedby the weight of the moment, the silence,the look of disappointment in a lover’s eyes—what do we call the moment, then, whenthe words are finally summoned, like asparkle of fireflies, and by grace, by themercy of the night, what was damagedhas been restored? Freire spoke that one reads the worldbefore they read the word, which suggests that thefirst stage of language is in the experiencing of a thingto the point of knowing; in this knowing,then—of song sparrows and house sparrows,of catbirds and European Starlings, of a lover’s wantsand needs, one could say, genuinely, that knowingto the point of the words conjuring themselvesis, perhaps,…
