Fluency

May 31 2015

There is a word

on the tip of my tongue

I cannot rush.

Or go at head-to-head.

More wrestling, than knock-out punch,

where I must circle, feint, huff

use misdirection, and bluff

until the synapse connects

and the word suddenly comes.

Just where it was

all along.

If only it worked like a frog’s,

stabbing bugs

too quick to see.

The delicate tip

sticky, slick, flicking-out

unerringly.

Those long moments of brain lock,

when I marvel at words

panic

when they abandon me.

When I pause, and hem, and haw,

sure they will come

soon enough.

Because without language

I, too, am lost.

Bug, butterfly, moth

locust, weevil, wasp

leave a bitter taste

unnerving crunch.

Rolling off

the tip of my tongue

with fluent aplomb.

And like a fat Buddha

in his accustomed spot,

a puffed-up frog’s

contented gulp.

I just read an article about optogenetics, in which a neuron is genetically modified to be activated by light. This allows neuroscientists to tease out brain function, down to a single synapse. It sometimes feels like this when you've lost a word, and then it comes: that tiny obscure neuron, suddenly making its connection, lighting up.

I also just saw the brilliant movie Still Alice (for which Julianne Moore won the Best Actress Academy Award). I found it very hard to watch. Her loss felt very close, since -- of all people --I'm so much about language and intellect. And because I -- like everyone -- is constructed of memory, and little else.

So every time I have one of those common little brain farts, I wonder about the beginning of the end. And -- like that fat smug frog -- feel triumphant when the word does eventually come. I'm great with faces. And somehow getting better with proper names. But sometimes, simple words fail me. I feel it in 2 places. First, in the brain, where I can sense all the ingredients of the word, and feel oh-so close, just waiting for it to spark. This is the wrestling. Because you can't go at it directly. It's all circling and feinting and misdirection; the strategic pause. And second, on the tip of the tongue (clichéd as this is!): where you feel the word just about to roll off; where you want to flick out and stick it, as if out of thin air.

I think the serious part of the poem can be discerned in panic; as well as in the emptiness/ when language has left me. The rest is all fun. Especially the part where I swallow a bug!

The part I'm most pleased with, believe it or not, is huff. I wanted a word that implied empty threat, bravado; but it needed to rhyme. Huff materialized, and somehow seemed right. So I looked it up, and it meant that exactly: one of those moments when I shake my head disbelievingly, amazed once again at the perfection of the English language.

(I've assumed weevils fly -- like the rest of the bugs on that thesaurus-like list -- since they're a kind of beetle. Not that a frog can't flick an insect off a branch. But out of thin air is even better!)