Origin

These carefully arranged letters were not spewed
from a bland machine of beige.
Nor stamped by the spindly hammers
of a much cherished typewriter.

I would like to think their existence began in bright red wax,
at the curled fist of an infant as he wrote his name
for the first time, on the back of a used brown envelope
his mother gave him.

Later, his gangly, noodle glyphs took off into the world.
To see if they could stand on their own, make ends meet
and reach full cursive maturity.

Some took to the trees, hanging upside down
by their looped descenders.
Swinging in the breeze like bats.

A few began community service,
attached themselves to road signs
and spent their days shouting their warnings.

Others paired up or grouped down.
Finding that together they could make strange and beautiful sounds,
they resided in the flared bells of brass instruments,
propellers and high voltage wires.
Buzzing, humming and whirring away the hours.

The more adventurous adhered themselves
to the tail fins of airplanes heading for Egypt,
They paid their respects to their ancient ancestral roots
that are forever fossilised on the walls and chambers
of the Pharaohs’ tombs.

Some of like-mind sensed a higher destiny.
Finding strength and power in unity.
With limitless creativity and possibility
they organised themselves into phrases, sentences.

Today, these marks of meaning fulfilled their life’s purpose.
The rest remain stacked and squashed into the cartridges
and refills of our pens,
waiting to throw themselves at the mercy of the great silver ball
that will press them onto our pages,
with a permanence we will never know.