Signs and Symols

                Signs & Symbols 
      (Show & Tell: the 2 Economies)

           These are the year's worst nights.
Ice glazed on the top boughs,
           Old snow deep on the ground
 
“Semiotic is in principle the discipline
studying everything that can be used
in order to lie.
 
          And, opening out long wings, take
Flight, unguided and apart, to caliper
           The blind synapse their voices cross
Over the dead white fields,
 
If something can’t be used to tell a lie,
conversely it can’t be used to tell the
truth.  It can not, in fact, be used to
tell at all.”
          (Umberto Eco. A Theory of Semiotic)
 
                  These nights the iron air clangs
Like the gates of a cell block, blank
           And black as the inside of your chest.
 
“Only when there’s a possible lying worm
can we begin to speak of a true worm and
only then does worm become a  sign.”
                           (Lewis Hyde. Trickster)
 
                          
                     
 
Over the dead white fields,
           The dead black woods, where they take
Soundings on nothing fast, take
Soundings on each other, each alone.
 

 











 



                      "I was thinking again about
             reasons and   explanations.”
                          writes Gary H___ quoting Jung:
                            But the spirit of the depths
                              spoke to me and said:
                  'To understand a thing is a bridge and
                      possibility of returning to the path.
 
But to explain a matter is arbitrary and sometimes even murder.
Have you counted the murderers among the scholars?'"
 
From Jung’s Big Red Book.
And from W.D.Snodgrass, “Owl”
reconfigured to fit my screed.