The Darkest of Arts

Hard to select, difficult
To defend one against all—
Fire is brilliant and lethal

And trails darkness like nothing.
Tools that double as weapons,
Extensions, the birth of death

From a distance, the distance
Continually growing,
That’s a dark art, and bloody.

But texts should vote for language
As the darkest art of all,
Human language, peculiar

In some hard-to-pin-down way,
Possessed of some subtlety
Enhancing its potency

Beyond the singing of whales,
The pheromones of anthills,
The conversations of birds.

Language is the darkest art,
Possibly mother to fire,
Codifier of weapons,

And source, unquestionably,
Of its own storage in signs
Like these, which gift it the gift

Of ever longer lasting,
So far, and so much greater
Darkness, most of culture’s mass.