The World As Conversation Poem by Dennis Ryan

Wednesday morning, February 6,2019 at 10: 54 a.m.; Thursday night,
February 7,2019 at 7: 18 p.m.

"It is always hard like this, not having a world
To imagine one, to go to the far edge..."
- William Bronk, "At Tikal"

We use language to divide up the world,
this part, that part, others; we say this is this,
that that, to make sense of the world, what we
apprehend,if only to satisfy ourselves.But even
as words leave our mouths, they supervene themselves,
alter, alter situations, create chain reations of meanings
causing unforeseen developments:what we thought
we know, knew, we don't.And so forth.Life becomes
more intelligible as we enter into conversations:
we get to know what reality is like this way,
or what we take to be reality.In the course
of our conversations, we choose certain words
that disclose our notions of reality, and conversation
partners either agree or disagree, in whole or in part,
our conversations turning on the basis of such.
All of this happens regardless of the language spoken,
English and Japanese included:All.Every single one.
"Subete".全て"Zembu". 全部"Mina ga mina". 皆が皆
Research scientists call their conversations "research",
and thereafter "research results", which are verified
or disproved, in all or in part, by groups of scientists
using "research methods" that supervene and displace
old ones as our knowledge of the world grows, develops,
improves on itself.Meanwhile, the world's languages
stay pretty much the same and differ in degree only,
never in kind, and, altogether, only seem follow one rule:

Necessity."Hitsuyoo".必要

The ability to translate from one language into another
with relative ease demonstrates the rough equivalence
of the world's languages, and argues for some language
universals, perhaps even a universal grammar, though
not much moreそれほど多くはありません as
languages approach each other quite differently
in such nuanced, varied waysthat the best
we can say is that they are commensurate,
that all argue for metaphor."Inyu". 隠喩
There are no disagreements here—the sounds
of words correspond to their meanings regardless
of the language spoken, the connections between
sounds and their meanings being arbitrary: "casa"
in Spanish means "house"; in Japanese it's "umbrella"—
and something else in a third and a fourth language.
Use. "Shiyoo".使用"Poets build their monuments
mockingly" while stone masons build celebratorily,
placing one large stone upon another mounting upwards
into the sky, though such celebrations don't commemorate
anything—any event, anyone's victory, anyone's death.
No, monuments celebrate in earnest our inventiveness,
our ability to imagine a world word by word to live in:
the places, people."Everything." "Subete". 全て
Language alone does this: the world as conversation.