IN WHICH TWOMBLY & RADER CONSIDER THE LETTER
CY TWOMBLY, UNTITLED (NEW YORK), 1970
In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with
the letter: the letter / is the beginning &
in the beginning
is the letter: first mark, first slash, first line, first
sign—not drawn but notched,
scored: the spoor of speech:
the trace, the track /
of utterance:
the invitation not just to see but to read,
to record: to write
and rewrite the self into everything it is
and is not:
letter within letter:
line from writer to reader:
sender / receiver:
what is life but a correspondence,
a notation,
written / read by & about the self:
Dear X, Dear Y . . .
Life, like the sentence,
ends, but what if the letter is infinite?
Dear Twombly,
master of the eternal e, unending o--
silent scriptographer of the allusive field,
what letter
would you write to /for our country?
What sign, what scrawl
speaks through its own silence into the ear
of our brightest hearing?
Calligraphic and metonymic
all at once. Yes, it is true we may not hear,
but we still might read,
and yes, it is true that we may
not read, but we still might see.
Darkness blinds but only until it is marked by light.
Blindness darkens
but only until it is lit by mark.
What awaits us, Cy, in the mailboxes of the dead?
Here, the glyphs and graphemes
of our daily lives
seem at best unreadable,
at worst struck through.
It is time to draw the insurgent word /
time to write
the letter of our uprising on the envelope that is this land.
To the tyranny of edict,
I send the erasing angel:
to the president of autocracy,
I post the cancellation.
and the word was with
the letter: the letter / is the beginning &
in the beginning
is the letter: first mark, first slash, first line, first
sign—not drawn but notched,
scored: the spoor of speech:
the trace, the track /
of utterance:
the invitation not just to see but to read,
to record: to write
and rewrite the self into everything it is
and is not:
letter within letter:
line from writer to reader:
sender / receiver:
what is life but a correspondence,
a notation,
written / read by & about the self:
Dear X, Dear Y . . .
Life, like the sentence,
ends, but what if the letter is infinite?
Dear Twombly,
master of the eternal e, unending o--
silent scriptographer of the allusive field,
what letter
would you write to /for our country?
What sign, what scrawl
speaks through its own silence into the ear
of our brightest hearing?
Calligraphic and metonymic
all at once. Yes, it is true we may not hear,
but we still might read,
and yes, it is true that we may
not read, but we still might see.
Darkness blinds but only until it is marked by light.
Blindness darkens
but only until it is lit by mark.
What awaits us, Cy, in the mailboxes of the dead?
Here, the glyphs and graphemes
of our daily lives
seem at best unreadable,
at worst struck through.
It is time to draw the insurgent word /
time to write
the letter of our uprising on the envelope that is this land.
To the tyranny of edict,
I send the erasing angel:
to the president of autocracy,
I post the cancellation.