“The Word”

As brutally as bees drive their tongues to flower,

As gentle as that seems to us,

So let us live our ordinary dying,

This morning glory, this fiery star gone nod:

Here’s the pure tongue of words becoming

As they also pass away: Listen, then kiss me:

The last sound we’ll hear will be the silence

Of our first word finally formed, our first sweet and

     violent tasting. 

                       -David Daniel

This poem is keenly aware of transience: the moment of becoming is also the moment of passing away.  And with that recognition there’s the familiar carpe diem theme: “then kiss me.”  What makes this poem distinctive, however, is the attention to sound, silence, and language.  It’s “Listen, then kiss me”; it’s “the pure tongue of words”; it’s the paradox of “the last sound we hear will be the silence” that twists and renews this perennial theme in a contemporary way.