taste and see that it is good
here is a thing about me, some words are just very satisfying, the way they sit, perfect and entire unto themselves like maybe a little pebble on your tongue, you can hold it there as you go through your day, and who will know? right now on my tongue i have the word diminuate and next to it is attend - this last in the sense of anticipation which i also love. my mouth is big but can’t hold all three so later when i spit or swallow those first two anticipation can go in.
when he was a baby, maybe 13 months old, i brought him all the way across the ocean to meet his family. so they could meet him, see what i made. in my uncle’s back yard he sat on a step very quietly as i chatted with a cousin when my aunt called out look at what he is doing!
did she say it in english? i can’t remember now, thirteen months turned to thirteen years. my mother did not hear english until she got on a boat, an actual boat going across the ocean, can you imagine?
some people on the deck were speaking and she wondered, how is it that they are speaking with stones in their mouths? curling her own tongue in her mouth in the way she imagined they were doing to make the sounds.
i made that last part up, i don’t know what her tongue was doing, how could i?
but his tongue. that one i do know. he sat on the step quietly and now and then carefully selected a pebble from the gravel at his feet and placed it in his mouth. this is what i saw when my aunt called out.
with my finger i carefully swept his mouth of stones, there were several, at least five, and all the while he calmly permitted me, looking at me with his wise baby eyes as though saying
am i not my mother’s son?