[Newspoetry] Reb Derrida's Apotheosis?

[DL Emerick]

As he lay dying, closing the circle,

His gaze fixed on the Eternal One,

Reb Derrida had one last vision.

 

His wheezing breath intoned it:

"There is nothing outside the text,"

And then his eyes closed; he died.

 

His closest followers shrugged,

Should dying words be more true

Than those of the living one?

 

Besides, hadn't he said this,

Already so many different times,

In all so many different ways?

 

That the text is all there is,

Is all that we know of the text,

There is nothing beyond it.

 

It was a simple message,

Enough to set a world on fire,

Combustible heap that it is,

When compiled as paper text.

 

Ashes, dust and ashes, dust:

The world goes on in texts,

Or it doesn't pass on at all,

Is lost beyond forgetting,

Never coming back to mind.

 

"Nothing is outside the text,"

Another companion heard,

But he took it imperatively,

An injunction to write more,

An affirmation: if not text,

It is a mere nothing to us.

 

A way of life is only words,

Phrases, sayings of doings,

For the deeds are silent,

Until someone speaks them,

Speaks and calls their name,

Calls them into true being,

The memory of what is.

 

"Let nothing be outside the text."

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