Luminous Words
Beyond Language

Luminous words
  writing words
as close to
  beyond words
as words
  can write

There were times he felt so reverent of words that he didn’t want to use just any pen pencil brush keyboard to write them down. Most of the time these days, to be honest.

He’s walking down a street that once was a regular street for cars and bicycles and such but now is a very wide sidewalk, spanning the full width between storefronts. A pedestrian street, made for shoppers and buskers. Busking was allowed, so rumor had it though he had never bothered to verify that, or put it to the test—bringing his guitar here and set up shop.

Not so busy tonight, well, the hour was getting on, several stores had already closed and others were preparing to.

He slipped into the largest department store on the street, also getting ready to close—one of the attendants threw him a questioning look, or a pleading look: please be quick. He pretended not to see.

Instead, he took the escalator up to the fourth floor, as if all the time in the world had just fallen into his lap. Office supplies, pens and such.

He had something special to say, but he couldn’t say it without a fountain pen, and that’s one thing he was one short of. He spotted pens in a far corner. Attendant-less. Salesclerk-less. He walked over there and over the counter with the fountain pens. All behind glass. Thief-proof. He didn’t mind. His thieving days were over, four years over—someone from TA (Thieves Anonymous) should have given him a pin, he would have worn it.

So many, and all so, so, expensive. Well, this is why God the creator created credit cards. Still no attendant. Oh, over there, also busy closing up shop. He rose his hand and waved, help, please. She saw and shrugged and sighed (by the looks of things) and headed over.

He returned to studying the fountain pen ware. That one, he decided. Midrange as for the display, too expensive as for budget; nevertheless. Can’t be helped. He needed it.

“That one,” he said, pointing, once she finally arrived.

“You sure?” she had the gall to ask. Well, by his appearance, who could fault her?

“Yes,” he said. Not affronted—officially.

Another shrug and sigh and she fished out a key chain and ring and studied the haul for a little while, selected the right key and opened the display. She brought out the pen (in its beautiful, padded case—velvet was his guess, blue) and placed it on the counter. Named the price, and held out her hand for his form of payment. Cash or charge she finally wondered. He fished out one of the cards with some credit left (hopefully enough) and handed it to her.

“Do you need some extra ink?”

“Does it come with ink?”

“Supposed to.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She opened a drawer and pulled out two cartridges. “Blue okay?”

“Fine.”

“On the house,” she said.

“Great,” he said.

She ran the card. There was enough. She asked him to sign the slip and she wondered whether he wanted a bag. He replied in the affirmative and she fished out a small bag with the department store logo, placed the pen (in its case) in the bag and handed it to him. Now she smiled. Probably just handed her a pretty nice commission he thought. He thanked her and headed downstairs, the correct writing implement now secured.

The walking street seemed even emptier (though he had not been gone that long). Just the odd stray, just like him.

He headed for the subway, just a little worried about nearly maxing out his last credit card with two full weeks till payday.

On his way to the subway, the snow started falling. It’s funny how the atmosphere softens the moment the first flakes appear. No wind this even, just silent crystals slowly descending as if through liquid. It’s not snowing very hard he told himself when you can count the flakes. Well, that lasted for about a minute, then it really started snowing. The air turned white and he was speeding up to reach the subway and snow-less safety.

He clutched the paper bag and then transferred his grip to hold the case itself through the paper. Not risking the loss of this. Nor the cartridges. He fished them out and put them in his pocket. On second thought he put the bag-encased case in his pocket as well. Safe and secure.

He’d been thinking about Bach lately. How his organ words transcended not only music but also mathematics. He strongly suspected that Bach had been a closet mathematician. And he needed to poemize him, Bach.

Somehow.

Hence the fountain pen. He needed good words. Luminous words. Words that nearly escaped language. Bach words. In honor of.

Words that perhaps managed the escape.

::

His little apartment was freezing. No central heating here, just his kerosene heater which only warmed you if you bent right over it. He lit his two gas stove burners to give it a hand; luckily the place wasn’t that big. This would do the trick, in a not-too-far off eventually.

He fished the paper bag and the two cartridges out of his pocket and placed them on his table. He brought out the case and opened it. It was a very beautiful pen, fourteen karat gold tip said the little brochure that also told him how to replace the cartridge. He opened the pen as instructed and pulled (gently) out the existing cartridge. It was full. Great. He replaced it and put the pen down.

And now for paper.

And now for Bach.

He had nearly a ream of good quality (not top) typing paper in his closet, and he retrieved a few sheets.

Then he found his favorite recording of the Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor and placed it on his (rather excellent) sound system.

Now to pay tribute to God.

For he had a theory: Bach is God. Well, if not God God then at least of the same substance, of that he had no doubt.

:

Of sounds there are none more God-like than those first measures of the Toccata and Fugue in D-minor (or D-Moll as his Archiv German pressing said). They arrived through the ceiling, from a distant somewhere up there in the darkness, as descending lashes of beauty to kill the frozen silence.

Re-stunned, he reached for his new pen and a sheet of paper as would a photographer for his camera when suddenly stumbling upon visiting aliens—slowly, carefully, inch-by-inch—hoping not to draw their attention, spook them. This was the time for luminous words, drifting down (like falling flakes) on paper.

Him God. Him Bach. This was the time to let what now flowed into him flow through him and then out as ink onto this fine paper. Luminous words.

Then he began to write down all that Bach said.

Those first few measures again, resurrected in a lower register, circling, then entering him like so many lovers: through his ears, through his eyes, through his skin, embracing him each as they entered. His body sang with Bach. Then the vision.

It was Brother North Wind: the ever dawn of the northern lights, their shimmering pipes of icy organ rising shifting rising in a mid-winter fantasy making snow sing. It was God coming down through his ceiling as the aurora borealis and he knew then and there that Bach and God were indeed one and the same.

Then the world rises. It starts somewhere in the engine room of time, his feet on the lower pedals, hands too to the keyboard left as he begins to lift the planet. His little apartment vibrates with the effort, with the strength and sheer joy of that rising. He is water He is wave He is blue ink and He flows onto papery white frame after frame of photographed aliens or no one will ever believe that he actually hears this.

The lifting escalates and crescendos and is done escalating now and flings open the door onto Spring.

He hears and sees and follows with the tip of his costly fountain pen and out into Spring: The doors are flung wide open, onto narrow crystal steps that dance up into the morning into sky. No more Brother North Wind now, just dawn and dew and those little lakes of silver that form on his petals and leaves and do to sense of smell what Michelangelo did to rock.

He wishes he could cry matching tears. They might move him out of this freezing almost ceiling-less room so full of darkness and frost and this immense music.

Sound as Mountain. Physical. And he must confess, he loses his way. In Him. He has taken leave of winter snow and Boreas’ and Bach’s Light and now there is only ocean reflecting soul and he cannot comprehend how anyone encumbered with arms and legs and fingers and toes could possibly have conceived and composed beauty such as this, wings such as these and again he reminds himself that he is in His presence, sailing His air, and that for Him all is possible.

What goes through God’s mind when he writes music like this? What could possibly inspire Him, source of all inspiration? But something does and did and is he really the first to hear this? To hear what He meant. To see what He saw.

There are islets below. They could be Greece or they could be Australia or they could be some summer archipelago up north, he doesn’t know and really he doesn’t care as long as his wings carry him and he doesn’t fly too close to the sun.

They sail on, Bach and God and him for the final measure.

Once over the stylus reaches the inner groove of the LP disk, and now starts tapping out repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat until he rises and lifts the record player’s arm and puts it back in its cradle. Good job.

::

He weighs the pen in his hand, is it up for this? Neither confirmation nor denial. He unscrews the cap and smooths the top sheet of paper. Is it up for this? No confirmation of denial there either. So, he sets out, sitting on the carpet, elbow resting on the glass-topped low table, pen reverently held, hoping for more than just legible words. This is what, over the next hour or so, in starts and stops (to think to feel to marshal language) writes:

So far to travel
So long to have lived
No one knows where it began
Where it had lived and played
As River Children
But now they’re on their way
And now they are here
River, east to west
Now up to down
Like a fountain
Now bewinged
Now surprised at its own orientation
Now flexible and varied
Now more so
Now surprised at its sparkling entrails
Diamond like entrails
Gushing, mumbling, rumbling
That building down there, chimney less
Tar covered roof tiled in red
A missing tile here and there
Leaking winter into the attic below
Vaporous walls though, if we separate
We will seep through
And so, assuming the being of separate
Molecules they one by one
Hundreds by hundreds
Thousands by thousands
Millions by millions
Billions by billions
Trillions by trillions
Uncountables by uncountables
Seep through roof tiles tar
Cement attic floors ceilings
Bedrooms and hallways
To finally find his ceiling
Where they reform
River again
A river of light again
A Northern light
To surprise the young boy
Who seems to have lost his lungs
For he doesn’t breathe
Or if he does it’s very gently
His ears as open as heavenly gates
To the sinless believers
And he drinks this river of sound
For sound is what the sparkly bits
Are all about
Which he drinks and drinks
With eyes closed and he murmurs
This one word: Bach

::

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