today

I took the long way home.

Sat on a bench overlooking the bay.
Boats in dry dock.
Water frozen over.
Canada Geese eating snow.
And multitudes of Mallards asleep in little bundles.
That they sleep like this,
drift and bump into each other on rolling water
but find a stationary reprieve in winter.

Ducks-on-ice.

Eyes closed to hear the sounds.
Rolling crunch of tires drawing near.
And flapping flocks of chickadees whizzing past the ears.
A car door opening.
Glimpse of jeans, tan suede coat, dark hair.
Just a guy walking along the edge.
Saying hello while meandering past.
(Some kind of) Latino accent.
Stopping not twenty feet away.
Inhaling the sun,
into a slow declaration that
"This weather is a gift. From God."
Saying this to me.
And walking away.

His comment lingering like a floating feather.

Notion of God.
A word that means too many things.
Noting how easily one can strike it out
whenever not convenient.
Looking up
at the sky
and thinking
God-in-the-clouds.

To place a word under erasure,
to write a word and cross it out
with both the word and its deletion visible
is its sous rature.
To strike a word,
as if to show how inaccurate it is,
while also revealing how necessary (it is) to communicate.
How this shoves (the reason for keeping) its legibility
into the light of consciousness.

Derrida cites an example
in which the two bracketed words in the following statement
s h o u l d have a visible 'x' placed through them:

"the sign (is) that ill-named (thing)...which escapes
the instituting question of philosophy: what is...?"

which I write like this

the sign is that ill-named thing
...which escapes the instituting question of philosophy: what is...?

How the words (is), (that) and (thing) are necessary
to the meaning of his sentence
even as their strike-out changes its connotation.

And what he means to show by this
is language's inadequacy
at communicating any originary truth
that would, of necessity,
transcend itself.
To

transcend

language.

How language divides as it also connects.

"In examining familiar things we come to such unfamiliar
conclusions that our very language is twisted and bent
even as it guides us. Writing 'under erasure' is the
mark of this contortion." (Derrida, 1976).

To strike a word,
while still making it legible as a-word-crossed-out,
is to destroy the very idea of the sign
while also visibly tracking its trace.

As visible as waking remnants-of-thoughts-left-over-from-dreams.

Placing words under erasure
in any attempt to expose the lack of fixityofmeaning in language
is to

efface

the presence of a transcendental signifier
while also maintaining an echo of its history.
His claim that this deletion is the final writing of an epoch.

As if to trace the history of its thought.

There are several levels of paradox implicit in (t)his idea.
The first,
where words contradict themselves,
where one meaning is juxtaposed with a contradictory one.
Such paradoxes are expressed by saying
"This sentence is lying."

The affirmation of a lie.
To promise, "I am lying."

But the deepest level of paradox exists
where language contradicts itself.
Where the possibility of meaning-itself is cast into doubt.
As if a n y thing does not mean s o m e thing.
This formulation assumes what it denies.
Remembering that to speak of doubt
is to presume that there is certainty.

Since a successful articulation
will always require the destruction of its meaning,
such paradoxes cannot be articulated.
Therefore, Derrida cannot articulate this kind of paradox.
So he does the next best thing:
he writes it under erasure.

To write under erasure.
To write a word and cross it out,
to let both the word and its deletion stand
is a borrowed practice
from the originator~Heidegger
(who critiques the word "Being"
by simply saying that the word 'being'
presupposes the notion that anything can be).
This pressuposition that Heidegger wishes to examine
is very difficult to question.
To question the possibility-of-being
within a language which exists
b e c a u s e it assumes this possibility (of being)
causes Heidegger to write the word as [.].
Brackets allow him to metaphorically point to the fact
that he cannot help but use the word in the very process
of questioning its meaning.

Heidegger's [.]-technique suggests that Being does exist
and can somehow be apprehended through philosophy
which in turn depends upon language.
The same hope that Plato articulates.

But Derrida,
rogue thinker that he is,
assumes no such thing.
He takes Heidegger one step further,
to say that all language is written under erasure.
That language only ever exists b e c a u s e there is a paradox
at the very place where language comes into being.

Being a trace.

In other words,
there is a paradox at the origin of language.
But since text always articulates this paradox
and never escapes from it,
one can only write in a transcendental language
not translated in human terms.
That those who read these (Heideggerian) signs
cannot precisely convey what they have learned
in mere words.

Wondering if this is what Plato means
by his escape from the ancestral cave into the light;
his metaphor for escaping into a world
not bound by human language?

Meanwhile,
the warmth of a February sun,
geese nibbling at the ice,
whizzing chickadees
and a stranger's voice
converge into this specific confluence.
The experience of a moment remembered-beyond-words
and any attempt to describe it afterthefact,
after the Godofit,
always remains inaccurate.

God.

To speak its sous rature.
As if to seek it.

Remembering
that to speak of doubt
is to assume
that there is certainty
in any drive
towards the longwayhome
that presumes a gift
of unexpected possibility.


...