a white stripe on each human branch
each time its human
spoke a word
and we saw those stripes
in small groups
synchronise
when people chanted or sang together
or alternate, in batches
when they conversed
and we saw poetry
badly recited
forming uniform stripes
as the rhythms of network newsreaders
follow a limited set of patterns
or someone reading aloud
or the inner voice
of the narrator
as we silently read a novel
but when a good novelist writes dialog
a much broader set of rhythms can be used
to capture their mood
and reveal their character
(Joyce is the champ for this
George V Higgins gets an honorable mention)
now if we consider the cylinder
(or cone)
traced by a branch's radial ontology
with lit stars
when ontology-categories
are being actively
incarnated
as lifestories
we may view that life
as a novel
with stars implying
an almost-infinite
cascade of words
out of which
the novelist/biographer
chooses a finite subset
that can represent
all the important themes
not omitting, one hopes
words in rhythmic patterns
capturing the character's voice
