words

           *telegrams
           calculable words
           words as objects
           words as mathematical
           meaning price > value

time

           days of the week, hours of the day minutes
           time is mathematical
           time is measurable
           time is a commodity
           meaning price > value.

(let's not fund the humanities they say.)

life

deaths by numbers
earthquake in Nepal -- death count over 7000
just a number in a news report, really
just a
number.
deaths are measured in numbers
not people,
people are countable
objects.
7000 people.
meaning all your friends on facebook
every person in your lecture hall
every person you have loved or kissed
all your former neighbours
everybody you have talked to on public transportation
every barista that has served you coffee
when these are faces you remember when these are your friends your family when these are *your people that is when
7000
becomes more
than a number.

but we don't want to let it
be
that
do we?

we cannot understand it
or let ourselves feel it
we cannot grieve for 7000 people swallowed by anonymity
when the death of just
one
could **** us.

the world will end by 2060 because we will have let
the oceans overflow and we will be drowing by numbers.
not people.

these are numbers. facts. statistics.

so
who
cares.

the journalists and scientists and economists
know what they know
and maybe we know what they know
but we have to experience before we change and
it will be too late.

it is up to the artists, now, to the poets and painters
and the actors directors designers to
show us what things
feel
like

before we all become
calculable objects
in oceanic waste lands.

it is up to people with the gift to make things
mean
more

than 7000
does.