to bear

She hugs a stuffed bear. She opens her mouth and a word—or something sounding like a word—comes out. Bear. . . It comes out like a half world. “Ba.” The B is solid, but the vowel sounds strange. Not quite an e—nor an a, nor an o. A floating vowel. She hides her face. Without the final consonant it is strangely naked, a half formed word.

This is the astonishing thing: she grows shy.

Yes. That’s it. I say, bear, and she avoids my eyes.

The whole world of meaning and symbol.

It is difficult to bear. The transition from—what?—to differentiation.

She pulls an object out of the undifferentiated mass of objects and she shrinks as if from the implications of this.

It is difficult to bear.

To hear language in formation.

For a few more days, she does not try to speak.

A part of me mourns the loss of the unnamed world,

In the beginning was the word. To name things. Then the symbol of the thing. The beginning of “as if” time—a time of metaphor.