[11] Before There Were Poems
...there was an invisible web that stretched between us, long before the Internet, long before articulated words and Oxford commas and semicolon abuse and Hallmark, too. Before there were poems there were the shared looks, the contact without touching, the spark of understanding, the connection of mutual wisdom, the knowing, the mischievous grin, the shy look-away, the hand in the mouth—a single thumb, a finger, the whole drooly fist—and though we had no words to adorn our cries, our grunts, our laughter, those sounds were our language that delivered desire and carried the freight of feeling; but the eyes, the eyes said it all...before there were poems.*
