Speak Low (Daily Planet email #1128)

I take out the paper and pen in anticipation of having something to say. I write the letter with the intention it will be understood. I affix the stamp in the faith the letter will travel. I put the letter in a box, of all things, with the idea that it will be handled, then delivered, appropriately and accurately according to established agreements. I look out the window and imagine you reading it, thinking you will read it, watching the birds of the field in their fluttery search over grey and ground, furtively burying the doubt that you will read it. Some of this can’t be helped.

You build a transmitter and I put up an antenna, to communicate of course. I waited with the antenna until you did your transmitter thing, I’m not some crazy optimist, you know? You know. I stand precariously on the roof, pointing the antenna, this robot skeleton stalwart in the sclerotic trees, in order to receive your message from the high tower. I run a wire to a box (another box!) that will decode your message, turn it from waves into other waves that break upon the shore of my understanding. A deluge of meaning pours forth! Wanton violence. Cranberry hacks. Where I could get new windows. Maybe I missed something, you know, while I was on the roof.

I slice through the twin veils of artifice and edifice, scythe past the brambles of ignorance and petulance, and try to find a clearing in the heart of the would: a place to say thank you, right out loud. A space to say thank you for giving, and forgiving, showing me the way and not the way. I say thank you for your time, your mind, your heart, and points beyond. Between the gobble and the giblets, past the sauce and the sauced, before a galaxy of pies and stars, I say thank you, if not for everything, then for everything worthwhile. I still think I could say this more clearly: thank you.

Daily Planet Productions Ltd.

Still be and know.