it is

always something beyond language that awakens one
to a quality in someone else. Shared sensibility.
Pre language. To perceive another as someone
who can teach us something, who can open us up
with greater sensitivity to the inter-relationship of ideas.
This is what Deleuze means when he speaks of singularities.
Singularities coincidentally crashing into some new re-action,
the event of new thoughts unfolding. Creativity. Each new
thought an assemblage of its singularities, of those things
that make it possible. Take away any one of those elements,
like ingredients in a recipe, and that specific thought is no longer
possible. The serendipity of becoming as a function of assemblages
that collectively construct a social tissue. Skin of culture.
Sense of time and place.

The first time I saw him, he was standing on a ladder.
Sleeves rolled up. White shirt, black pants. Adjusting lights.
Months later, a conversation. Blue eyes, soft voice.
He liked children, old people. And everyone liked him.
But time moved too slow; he lived too fast. Played too hard.
Then my other choice as all of it drifted past.
A few years later. A bookstore. Same soft voice.
His "What are you buying?" to my "Marvin Gaye"
to his "Good lyrics for kids. Coffee?"
Stories of his life, my life. Beautiful eyes.
And still I could not tell him how I felt.