Older than Things by DB Jonas

The world of sound immersed us early on,

before the world of things appeared,

when light and shadow chortled in our sight

amid the chortling throb of mother-words

that galvanized our skin.

The buzzing noise of houseflies in the room,

the distant ring of voices in the hall, the silences

that whispered in the anxious dark,

the tidal weightlessness that dandled, swayed

and cooled our plummy infant flesh

persists throughout the noisy world we wander in

to vex the busy day and interrupt the night,

to animate the raucous stream of speech

that rises from our throats, the grasping words

we so routinely use to capture what we want.

No wonder then that poetry just can’t remain

within the bounds of our intention, but wanders

hapless through that subaquatic realm of sound,

that time before the visible, a universe more ancient

than the self, much older than the world of things.

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DB Jonas is the author of two poetry collections, Tarantula Season and Other Poems (2023) and Flight Risk (2025), as well as the forthcoming In Dubious Terrain. Further examples of his work can be accessed at jonaspoetry.com.