WORDS
In college, we used to spend our lunch recess playing Lexicon cards. An uncle of mine thoughtfully introduced me to the game, and I daresay it was the wisest thing he could have done. It sparked a curiosity for words in me. One day, I brought the Lexicon cards to college and introduced them to some friends in class, and lo and behold, they were utterly captivated.
We dived deeply into the game. To an onlooker, we might have appeared to be indulging in a game of rummy, something associated with bootlegging gangs peddling moonshine—utterly unacceptable within the college, bordering on sacrilegious and audacious. Our professor seized the cards, wielding them as a convenient whip, especially since he had a few scores to settle with us. The faculty was affronted, and the audacity of a few boys and girls playing cards in the classroom was deemed worthy of severe punishment, akin to being burnt at the stake.
The matter was escalated to the principal, and we were reportedly branded an incorrigible lot. I cannot recall precisely what followed, but our indulgence in the game persisted. This was perhaps encouraged by the principal’s understanding of what the game entailed, which, understandably, further alienated the faculty. Compounding all our infractions into a veritable book of crimes, the faculty could do little more than boycott us en masse.
These words of Pablo Neruda have now reminded me of "L'Affaire Lexicon" from some forty years ago.
"You can say anything you want, yes, sir, but it’s the words that sing; they soar and descend. I bow to them. I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down. I love words so much. The unexpected ones. The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop. Vowels I love. They glitter like coloured stones; they leap like silver fish; they are foam, thread, metal, dew. I run after certain words. They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem. I catch them in mid-flight, and as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, and set myself before the dish. To me, they have a crystalline texture: vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives. And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, and I let them go. I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves. Everything exists in the word."
