12.28.2013

"Transatlantic" Colum McCann


“They were pouring down their winnowed bitterness, and in his silence he just kept thrashing, spluttering, pushing the words away.  A refusal to drown.  What nobody noticed, not even himself, was that the grain kept rising, and the silo filled, but he kept rising with it, and the sounds grew different, word upon word, falling around him, building beneath him.  And now-at the top of the silo- he has clawed himself up and dusted himself off and he stands there equal with the pourers who are astounded by the language that lies below them.  They glance at each other.  Three ways down…They can fall into the grain and drown, they can jump off the edge and abandon it, or they can learn to sow it very slowly at their feet.”

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