The Ancient Modern
On Leaving Two Spaces After A Sentence / Joshua Alan Sturgill
My eyes (as well as my brain)
need a pause
after a well-crafted
sentence. So,
following each period,
point or mark, I tap
the space bar
twice.
The second space isn’t “wasted”
any more than margins
or headers are wasted.
Two spaces
looks better, reads better,
thinks better. The first
is the division
necessary to distinguish
each word. But
the second space! The second
is Selah, Om, Elijah’s seat,
the Great Silence, the glint
of the intellect revealed
only when a place is reserved
exclusively for Light.
The second space
is the Eternal beyond-speech
slyly intruding
on the temporal attempted-speech.
The second space, a Symbol
in the ancient sense:
the Higher present in the Lower.
The first space is utility.
The second, serendipity.
Of course,
if I were writing a manual
for installation and use
of microwaves,
I might dispense with the second space.
But since I’m trying
to communicate Truth and Beauty
(which simply means
trying to communicate),
I can’t help but make
a little room for transcendence.
Overcrowding and oversaturation
already smother our culture. Why
should we let them dictate
how we pace our words?
The Cosmos has its grammar,
its conventions. Two spaces:
merely my courteous bow
to Reality’s perilous prose
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