For Caroline Bergvall

palabra, metathesis of the Latin parabola, from the Greek parabolē, a comparison, a juxtaposition: para- “alongside” and bolē

“a throwing, casting, beam, ray”

parable, doublet of parole

comparison becomes narration in vulgar Latin and parabola becomes palabra, the word for word

an instructive allegory: if an utterance is a curve, any and all of its points are at an equal but growing distance from its focus

a line of verse is not to be taken for a directrix

confused, doublet of confound

confusioun, c. 1300 “overthrow, ruin” from Old French “disorder, confusion, shame” (11c.)

confound, c. 1300, “to condemn, curse,” also “to destroy utterly”; from Anglo-French confoundre, Old French confondre (12c.)

“crush, ruin, disgrace”

all from the Latin confundere: com “together” and fundere “to pour”

“to confuse, jumble together, bring into disorder” especially of the mind or

senses, “disconcert, perplex”

SIN ORDEN NI CONCIERTO

Old English word “speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word,”

from Proto-Indo-European were- “speak,

say.”

A girl stands alone on the road. Her thoughts are in a language other than this one. She takes in a playground abutting a gully outside a housing complex at the southern edge of the city. An empty swing set on a concrete platform. Stray dogs on the other side of the wire fence. The wind rustles the foliage of surrounding trees. They start speaking to her for the first time, yet she can’t put what they say into any of the words she knows. She contemplates the dance that initiates the drift of spores allowing the trees to go on multiplying.