Talk Talk

For Russell Timothy Miller and in memory of Jack and Geraldine

We are our language, but our real language, our real identity, lies in inner speech, that ceaseless stream and generation of meaning that constitutes the inner mind.

— L. S. Vygotsky, “Thought and Language”

I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts Into the stony idiom of the brain, I learnt the verbs of will, and had my secret; The code of night tapped on my tongue; What had been one was many sounding minded.

— Dylan Thomas, “From love's first fever to her plague”