Narrow Straits
A Jackpine Sonnet

Who threw the frog
that blocked the word stream
flowing through my throat?

The full moon whispered her secret
as she drifted past my window.

I tried to repeat her words
but I couldn’t move my lips
and my dry mouth tied
my tongue into little knots.

No sounds rose through
the airways of my lungs,
even though I am able to speak
in several different tongues.

The languages I love
were all backed up
in the narrow straits
of my throbbing throat,
never to be untied
by this sad season’s tide.

Comment:

So many allusions, so many illusions, so many elusions – where should I begin? Possibly with the loss of speech and then of language. How does one lose one’s speech? So many ways. A cough, a cold, laryngitis, a frog in the throat, a cake crumb caught half way down that makes one choke and splutter and rendered speechless. Stage fright can do it too. Standing there, in the spotlight, mouth open, no sound emerging.

Fear can act the same way – the word once said, can never be recalled – and so, one day, suddenly, we are afraid to open our mouths, afraid to share our thoughts aloud, afraid to speak out, afraid to stand out from the crowd. Hush. Keep quiet. Don’t say it aloud. Disobedience and doubt are no longer allowed.

Oh look, there’s Moo, peering over my shoulder. “Sky Blues,” he says. “My paintings speak for themselves. They don’t need words and they know no fear. That’s why I am here. To let color and line (and the proper spelling of colour) disperse your fear. ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ And one day I will paint you a rose, and you can see that it is a rose and you can call it what you want, but it will still be a rose and smell as sweet.” “You mean you put perfumes in your paints,” I asked him, “so that a painted rose smells like a real rose?” “Do you mean you stick frogs in other people’s throats,” he replied, “and create word dams so that language doesn’t flow?” “I don’t do that,” I replied. “Other people do it to me.”

“Now, now,” said Moo. “Remember Juan Ramón Jiménez – “No la toques más. Así es la rosa.” “Don’t retouch it any more. Roses are just like that.” “And word dams,” I asked him. “You can always remove them with a paint brush, and a little touch of the imagination,” Moo replied. “Well,” I said. “Can you now? Imagine that!”