I am about to recite a psalm that I know. Before I begin, my expectation
extends over the entire psalm. Once I have begun, the words I have said
remove themselves from expectation & are now held in memory while
those yet to be said remain waiting in expectation. The present is a word
for only those words which I am now saying. As I speak, the present
moves across the length of the psalm, which I mark for you with my finger
in the psalm book. The psalm is written in India ink, the oldest ink known
to mankind. Every ink is made up of a color & a vehicle. With India ink,
the color is carbon & the vehicle, water. Life on our planet is also
composed of carbon & water. In the history of ink, which is rapidly
coming to an end, the ancient world turns from the use of India ink to
adopt sepia. Sepia is made from the octopus, the squid & the cuttlefish.
One curious property of the cuttlefish is that, once dead, its body begins to
glow. This mild phosphorescence reaches its greatest intensity a few days
after death, then ebbs away as the body decays. You can read by this light.