before
made finding feel different from learning ㅤ ㅤ
as if the body knew the way before sound arrived ㅤ ㅤ
one asked for attention the other asked for obedience ㅤ ㅤ
the body noticed before the language learned ㅤ ㅤ
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Hi Mark!
You've crafted a piece here that speaks pretty directly to Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology. Like me, I can tell you distrust language. People like us believe that speech is often presented after emotional impact (delight or damage) has been processed. What I'm most impressed with here is that you've kept it broad enough to apply to trauma, love, art, faith, music, or movement.
The inclusion of "finding" in your opening distinction applies directly to the unpredictability we all live through — accidental encounters, intuition, and the subsequent grace. And learning implies structure, instruction, and sequence. These two ideas are implicitly correlated. & you follow that connection up with:
"as if the body/knew the way/before sound arrived"
Here, “sound” stands in for language, culture, and (maybe to a certain extent) naming? Our body often knows before it articulates. This line becomes a pre-logocentric space where knowledge is somatic, pre-verbal, and ancestral. You've asserted that instinct is the primary.
And then, the "attention" vs. "obedience" pairing. Very nice. This feels like it's pushing learning toward a space that's potentially coercive. I don't believe you're rejecting the concept of learning, but instead seeking to expose the cost when it overrides instinct. Love the philosophical nature of all of this.
Rhetorically, you use lineation beautifully with short lines and slow perception. It feels like one is noticing or learning based on the form. You use white space beautifully, parallelism with nuance asymmetry, and a very nice selection of verbs.
This is a piece that comes from a place of experience. Where living has already happened, & language is attempting to catch up. Really freaking nice.
This lands so cleanly. You’re naming that pre-verbal intelligence, the body as first scripture. Finding as recognition, learning as instruction. One bows to what’s already known; the other trains us to listen later. That last turn says it all: the body noticed long before language tried to take credit.