"Writing, which would seem to crystallize language, is precisely what alters it. It changes not the words but the spirit, substituting exactitude for expressiveness." ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau "On the Origin of Language
"Cerré los ojos, los abrí. Entonces vi el Aleph.
Arribo, ahora, al inefable centro de mi relato, empieza aquí, mi desesperación de escritor. Todo lenguaje es un alfabeto de símbolos cuyo ejercicio presupone un pasado que los interlocutores comparten; ¿cómo transmitir a los otros el infinito Aleph, que mi temerosa memoria apenas abarca?" ~ Jorge Luis Borges "El Aleph"
To be a person who strives to express, to communicate, to draw a picture in another's mind of what she is feeling, is to be a writer. To be a person who sits and stares at the page, a page full of black marks, full of meaning, but seeing emptiness, seeing something that sits incomplete, quiet, is to be a writer. Beautiful images clouds her head, stacking up until an explosion of words come out the tips of her fingers. Then something painful hits her; it is the realization that what she is trying to say gets lost between the lines. It's never quite right. How to explain love? How to explain joy? How to explain anger, hate, pity, compassion?
Every once in awhile something happens, and her words are just right, they are exactly what they mean. This is when her muse visits.
After reading "El Aleph" by Borges in Hispanic Short Story and having weeks of Philosophy of Language jammed into my head, my creative explosion took the form of a song. Here is my muse.
"The Muse"
She walks around in a haze,
falls in love for just a few days.
In her heart there's everything to see,
but for the world her mask in complete.
She only visits in your lonesome dreams
leaves some words for you to keep
gives you tastes of perfect clarity,
shows you all that it can be.
"Quiet" she says as she touchs your eyes.
"I'll give you images that'll let you live"
She shows you all the points of the universe
then leaves you with that simple curse.
I closed and opened my eyes
and all I could see was pure life.
The beauty it brought tears to my eyes
and in that moment there were no lies.
"Quiet" she says as she touchs your lips.
"I'll give you words that'll let you live"
She tells you all the points of the universe
then leaves you with that simple curse.
In moments of ecstasy
where everything is exactly what it means
she will be right there with me
translating everything.
"Sing loud" she says as she lifts me up
"Now you see what you can give.
You found your voice in the universe
and are now free from that simple curse."
