What a Word Can Hold

Kamala and Amala were typical of feral children in that "they had no sense of humor, no sadness or curiosity or connection to others." Most important, feral children don't speak.

Is it language, then, that brings us
to sorrow -- to come so close
to the invisible shining
of the world. What is
a word -- a talisman
hung round the neck and fingered,
fingered, worn and polished
into sound -- and sound unfolds
like a square of leather, a feather,
a polished stone. And then --
discovery -- how much
can be carried this way,
the great continents lie like crumpled silk
in the folds of the brain.
All of Olduvai is here, on this
tongue of flame. All that is carried
is all that is lost.

For Amala and Kamala, let us cast
a scatter of
words.
Abandoned. India. 1922.
Wolf girls, wild child -- they are
eight and two. Kamala is too old,
she learns little. Amala is little
as a pillowcase, quick as water.
She learns more. But the worms
are too far gone in her. She's lost.
Her sister, unweeping except
in the way of wolves -- to sniff
and sniff, to nudge with the nose --
must be pulled from the grave.
See, now, she scuttles
out of the story. What can contain
her loss? Certainly not
a name.

_______

An early, early draft of the wild child poem I've wanted to write since reading Genie: A Scientific Tragedy. I think I may still owe Genie a poem. Also, I owe a poem to my father in his early guise as a speech pathologist who taught me sign. It's coming, Dad. I think maybe these are all your fault.

Put this in the language grouping. Here's the immediate trigger of the poem, and the source of the epigram: a remarkably dull book review from a normally provacative Salon reviewer. Sounds like a good book, though.