Happenings deux

(This is the most recent piece in a project that begins here.)

When all the things with names were brought together with all the things without
Riddles about light and the time of day
I stood among them as one of nothing
One of many somethings
We were the something and we are the everything
That was how we spoke
From that day we grew our language
I look at the words and they know me
In this place where there is not time
Where there is not measurement
The younger ones went down below to set fire to that which burns
The older ones began a slow ascent to the tallest peaks to see the stars
I among them listened to the languages as they formed
I learned to speak something of everything
Even the machine whistled in my ear and I understood its tune
The vine and the soil
The rock
The concrete
These things I keep and increase one by one
Each day a word
A phrase
To keep us savvy
And the light can reach us wherever we are
And we can shelter from it whenever we have need
These walls were built long before we arrived
They will stand here forever after we have left
If we leave
When we leave

There was a moment of anger
Diversion
But it dissolved in the air here
Old air
An old world
Long before all of this
Time for inventing riddles
Time for the weave beneath the weave beneath the weave
So in one respect I count
And the number is Seventy