How Do We Explain the Ineffable?

Photo by Andrzej Kryszpiniuk on Unsplash

How do we explain the sea
to someone who has never stood at its shore?

Perhaps by sound:
As a ceaseless breath,
Rumbling low, exhaling hiss and hush
Upon the sand.

Perhaps by smell:
The scent of salt, decay, and life,
Like a storm approaching,
Briny and ancient.

Perhaps by touch:
The feeling is one of immense, uncontained power and space.
The wind carries a fine mist that brushes the face.
And the ground itself—the sand—shifts and sinks underfoot.

How do we explain the color blue
to the blind?

By temperature:
Blue is coolness—
A breeze lifting sweat from skin,
The chilling sensation of ice,
The shock of cold water on wrists.

By emotion:
Blue is calm before it becomes longing—
A quiet room at dusk,
The weight of winter sky,
That particular ache of distance.

By sensation:
Blue is endless depth—
Like the sky stretching out forever above 
Or the feeling of being in deep, still water.
An expanse that makes you small.

How do we explain death
to the living?

There is the clinical answer:
The heart stops beating,
The brain ceases its electrical activity,
But beyond this realm,
Language fails—

Perhaps we say: a sleep without dreaming.
Perhaps: the moment before birth, reversed.

We reach for metaphor.
We open scripture.
We fall silent.