little red records

Articulation
Experimental Essay for the Online art project Meat Market
July 2005

Articulation /(use articulation symbol)/
[Fr., or L articulatio (n-), f. as prec.: see –ATION I 1 The action or process of joining; the state of being jointed; a mode of jointing. LME. 2 A joint,; esp. a structure whereby two bones, or parts of an invertebrate skeleton, are connected in the body, whether rigidly or flexibly. LME. 3 Movement by a flexible joint. rare. MI6
4 Each of the segments of a jointed body; the part between two joints. MI7.
II 5 The production or formation of speech sounds, words, etc.; articulate utterance or expression; speech. E17. 6 A speech sound; an
articulate utterance. MI8 7 Articulacy, distinctness. rare. LI8.

6 utterance

She came to me when I needed the strength to be thirteen. She sat in dirt and ferns, no muscle, no skin, no fur herself, but strong enough to pull me to her in a lonely place in my woods. The first deer that asked me to sing its bones. I brought them home, and cared for them, washed them, wondered at why her skull did not become a gleaming white. Dirty bones, gray and brown and blue no matter how you scrubbed and soaked and bleached. My bones. She waited for a long time to tell me why she’d comeæ the Deer are quiet, but they have stories. This is why some Indians don’t trust them. (They say in some of their stories that deer used to eat men, until a big battle near a cave, where the men won and began eating the deer. I am the other kind of Indian, and don’t believe that’s what happened.) The first deer I found alone, and then I grewænot tall but strongæand didn’t need men at all, though I was a woman now. Deer can go without water. Everyone agrees on that.

5 the production or formation of speech sounds

She told me to be a woman and to sing, and I became a woman and sang, and some people believed me. Sang songs about bones, sitting with bones, and making them walk again, talk again. Become. Speak. Sing. Return to earth. Become. Speak. Sing.

4 the part between two joints

I waited for a man, and finally drank. It was sweet, long drink. I lived with him in a city where the tallest and strongest thing was made to fall. (This was a big story, with many bones. People took the bones and made a monster from them with many mouths and as many arms as you can imagine. A monster that doesn’t sleep. It stalks them while they dream, even in the day. And now they eat other men, to keep the monster away. It’s true that some stories you shouldn’t trust. Beware of tricksters.) Became thirsty again.

3 movement

I left the place, and the man, and I was small again, at home. Some people say I ate the man. I listened so much to them and was quiet for so long I forgot how to sing. The second deer came in the late winter when I was with another man. He rested in an open field of cornstalks and melting snow where I had my camera, and the man had his camera, and I walked to him like I knew him. Old friend. I found strength in his bones enough to forget the hay bales and corn and the sound of the tall things that had fallen down. Drank the blue glow of late afternoon that in winter falls away to gray and brown too soon.

2; 1 connected in the body; the action or process of joining

I came back to him in the spring many times, and talked to him, and told him I hadn’t forgotten him. Thanked him for teaching me. He whispered to me to sing again, and love. And then I took some of his bones, and washed them, and cared for them. Found strength, and kept them with me. Kept him to remember. His head for thinking, jaw for singing, shin for running, back bone for keeping steady. My bones.

7 articulacy, distinctness rare

I know now that we do not eat men, but tell stories to hold them up. We don’t make the bones, we find the bones and leave them for people in songs, sing to make the people quiet, and then to make them strong.