The thalagoya [a giant Ceylonese monitor] has a rasping tongue that "catches" and hooks objects. There is a myth that if a child is given thalagoya tongue to eat he will become brilliantly articulate, will always speak beautifully, and in his speech be able to "catch" and collect wonderful, humorous information.
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My father, who was well aware of the legend, suggested we eat some when we were in the Ambalantota resthouse. One had just been killed there, having fallen through the roof. All the children hid screaming in the bathroom until it was time to leave.
It's funny to think about language like this, all hooks & catches, as though we're all to be nabbed like so many sea turtle hatchlings (reading lately is of Sri Lanka and Costa Rica, see); but we are, I suppose, or anyway it is pretty to think so. Pretty or vital, maybe, for me.
And so I think of this song from John's Daytrotter session, think of letters I have sent & have not sent. Is this the only reason we use words? for hooking & catching? It would be nice to believe that no, it is not - but I do not rightly know. If there were a thalagoya before me now, I would pay a tremendous price for that gift. These are maddening days, & I find myself increasingly unable to explain just what has gone on in the past twenty-odd years of my life.
So why am I writing this here? After I swore I was done? That other person who I spent this whole blog quoting remembers this - "Saint Thomas [says] we may pray for all those things we are not forbidden to want." If this has not been the tongue of a thalagoya, perhaps I can convince you that at the very least it has been some kind of prayer wheel, both a tool of wanting & an idol to all the silly desires that make up our short, crazed lives. Our eyes dim at the altar of such riotous, uncounted beauty.
