In Lieu of Logos

This is a poem by Scott Cairns, found in his collection of poetry, Recovered Body, pg. 70-71 (The whole book is amazing!).  This is really a poetic rendering of Prof. Bosma's concept of "optionsville," and the reason I prefer Hebrew to Greek.

In Lieu of Logos

Let's suppose some figure more Hebraic

in its promise, more inclined to move

from one provisional encampment

to the next, then discover the effect

wandering tenders even as it draws

the weary hiker on to further

speculation, crossing what has seemed so

like barren country but whose very

barrenness proves a prod for yet another

likely story.  The old Jews liked davar,

which did something more than just point fingers

to what lies back behind one's fussy, Greek

ontology of diminishing

returns.  I have come to like it too, word

with a future as dense as its past,

a Ding Gedicht whose chubby letters each

afford a pause at which the traveler

rubs his chin and looking up entertains

a series of alternate routes, just now

staying put at the borrowed outpost,

but marveling how each turn of the head

gives way to distance, layers every term

of travel--each terminal--with reprieve,

invites indeterminate, obscure enormity

to gather at the glib horizon's edge.