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# An abstract and somewhat poetic post
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/an-abstract-and-somewhat-poetic-post/
- Published: 2005-01-16T18:47:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:42:14.000Z
- Description: An abstract and somewhat poetic post
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Keith E. Buhler, Poetry

I was talking to Matt at his fiance's house,  
conversing on the nature of talk.

I said nothing not brought to discussion  
is ever remembered or well understood.

"No," he said, "there's something to be said, not for *talk*, but instead *proclamation*.  
The Messengers did not bring the word to discuss, but, instead, to proclaimed it.”

Well then, I said, one of two must be true for each proclamation:  
Conversation is the necessary preparation,  
Or it’s the necessary *post facto* digestion.

Here is my best guess, in other words.

Speech is.  
Response is, as well.

Speech and response together,  
as one thing,  
a new thing,  
is, as well:

Conversation.  
Or communication.  
“talk”.  
dialogue.  
Whatever.

But discussion is  
speech and speech.

Dialectic equals  
Rhetoric plus rhetoric.

(...when whole is greater than the sum of its parts.)

Matt?