Untitled Document
He has a commanding presence and deep rich voice. He
speaks, and no one listens. The grandparents here have heard it all in another
time; they have heard everything in another time. They do not listen. They do not
listen, because of all the afternoons that have gone before. The parents here look past the podium and into an
open window. They do not listen. They watch as an old professor erases
their youth from his blackboard. They do not listen.
The brothers and sisters and cousins here do not
listen. They do not know how. They have lost the ability to hear voices
straight on, voices not filtered through cell phones or text messages.
It’s 87 degrees in the shade, and there is
no shade. Somewhere people swim in the cool water of a lazy
lake. Here waves of heat cause the summer
colors to fade. The speaking man is first to fade. By the time he takes
breath for his second sentence he has dulled to black and white. By
his third sentence he is mutated to half-transparent. No one hears his
speech. No one knows his name.
He speaks, and one word sticks to the next; new words
start before their predecessors end: “Bethebestyoucanbe.” Words
tumble down his gown and gather in broken phrases at his shoes. The
words collect one by one, two by two, 10 by 10 — all gummed together,
a pile of unrecognized sound. Somewhere a centerfielder circles under a high fly
ball. Here the sound pile grows ever higher;
words cover the speaker’s feet and still come pouring out and down.
They cover his knees and his chest. Old words clog his mouth as new ones
try to force their way through.
No one hears. He chokes out mumbled half-words now.
He climbs the empty phrase-pile, hand over hand, to free his voice,
“ThirtyfiveyearsagowhenIwas . . . ” No one hears —
and yet he keeps speaking, more nothing sound. As his hill of useless
syllables grows, he is forced to climb higher to keep his head above the
numbing lexis-swell.
Somewhere young lovers look to the sky and watch the
clouds form
hearts — and flowers. Here a man climbs a ladder of lost
language; a ladder building upon itself. Talk-climb, talk-climb,
talk-climb . . . until he disappears, up the alphabet ladder, and over the
top! Vanished! Above the lectured vacuum! He is disappeared atop a
mile-high seamless mound of vowels and consonants.
He is gone, but his endeavor is not. Unintelligible
words come ever tumbling earthward from his unseen place. Ten more minutes
of never-heard expressions float down from nowhere, until, by some accord,
we do not understand his job is done. He has introduced the next speaker. Somewhere a family picnics in the shade of a white
oak. Here there is no discernible break
between the original speaker’s unheard words and the next
speaker’s unheard words. Just as the waters of two rivers join and
flow together, so do the speakers’ voices join and flow together.
The next speaker says something and no one hears him
say it; an infant cries from the audience, and 2,000 people search for the
cry. A worm-fat robin lands on an empty chair, and 2,000 people watch
intently as it head-bobs for a minute and then flies away.
Somewhere a gentle breeze turns a reader’s page. Here the next speaker climbs his own ladder of lost
language. Talk-climb, talk-climb . . . until he, too, disappears, up
the alphabet ladder and over the top! Vanished! Above the lectured vacuum!
Somewhere a quiet man fishes off the bank of a
slow-flowing river and drinks a cold beer. Here the next-next-speaker magically appears; perhaps he is the main
speaker. No one knows for sure, because no one paid any attention to all
the speakers who came before. Perhaps he is Abraham Lincoln, come to
deliver the Gettysburg
Address. If so, never is heard even “Four score and seven years,” because we
are now a full hour into the proceedings and . . . it’s 87 degrees in
the shade and there is no shade! All pretense of listening to even a
speaker’s opening statement has long since melted away.
A small child stands and applauds, and only then do
2,000 people know that the speeches are over. No one heard a spoken word
this day in May when it is 87 degrees in the shade and there is no shade.
If not for the child, no one would have known to strike up the band.
The gantlet of graduation speeches is done. Whatever
was said was never heard beyond the speaker’s ear.
Somewhere a freckle-faced boy in torn jeans eats ice
cream. Here the band has forgotten how to play
“Pomp and Circumstance”; they restart the tune for the 10th
time. Somewhere Garrison Keillor addresses a graduation
class. He delivers his speech in nine
words: “Be well. Do good work, and keep in touch.”
A speech for the ages.
Contact Doug Bybee Sr. at dougbybee@sbcglobal.net.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2007.
