Prophecy

Prophet, of what have you ever spoken but speech? Of what have you ever sung? For speech is already the future; speech returns as what has not yet happened. Speech itself – speech where speech is divided, and in the interval of itself. Interval – isn’t that what you saw prophet, though not with your eyes? Wasn’t it there you failed to see?

The prophet is always blind. The prophet is deaf. He has not seen, he has not heard, and he bears blindness at the centre of his seeing; he hears by hearing nothing. And when he speaks? The future speaks, and between us. Speech, the return of the future, its coming back, and by way of what speaks between us. The future listens to itself. The future awaits itself. Waiting: but who will cross the desert of speech?

The prophet is always a stammerer, no matter how eloquent his speech. He can never speak in his speaking; he lets speech hesitate, as what is said comes apart in his speaking. And even that is not his, his speech. Even that is the desert across which he’ll never cross, and that opens each time you hear him.

And then you know: prophecy is speech; speech is already prophetic, and whenever there are two of us gathered together, the future has opened, and by way of speech. Opened: but with no one to see it. Opened in the blindness at the centre of your sight, and in the deafness at the core of your hearing.