Any utterance, after its release from the body, hardens into iron tracery in the air. Everyday speaking erects esplanades, arcades, bridges, terraces and balconies. Shouting builds office towers and sports arenas. Muttering makes infrastructure: concourses, underground shopping malls, parking lots. Words come smoking from our restlessness. The plainer, the more unadorned the discourse, the more earthbound are the edifices we generate. There used to be castles in the air. But that was when people spoke poetry as a matter of course.
