Mimi Khalvati
Very... the very first time that I heard
– or worked out what it meant since at that age
English was still a mystery – the word
‘very’, I thought it strange. A sudden passage
flashed through its scrollwork gate into the heart,
the very heart and all its imprecisions
hitherto silent, every distinct part
of language. Here, like steps, all the gradations
of feeling could be heightened, magnified,
for someone else to feel. Like guardian angels,
adjectives, adverbs, standing side by side
with lone words that might otherwise conceal
the very nature of their joys and troubles,
could qualify the world and make it real.
