poetry without words

I wrote this post on my old blog, caeusura, on July, 18, 2014. I was going to edit and revise it but it has a kind of completeness the way it is, with its flaws * * * *

When a computer stores data, we call that memory and we also call it memory when we recall information or events. But what do the two processes - computer memory and human memory - have in common? They are both a kind of record. But when we open a file we have stored in a computer, we don't say that the computer is remembering. Remembering is a human thing. Implicit within the concept of remembering is that of forgetting. Computers don't forget things, so they don't remember things. And each person's memories are unique to them.

But what constitutes a memory? A kind of mnemonics is involved. A single detail represents the whole. In literature, this trope is called synecdoche. It's like a box with a label on it. But what language is the label written in? It's a kind of poetry, for sure.

It's a poetry without language and the box isn't really a box. No - it's not without language - it's without words. It's a very eloquent language. It's the language of gesture - the language of animals, the sea and the sky.