when words fail

 

Words can speak life

into a person’s soul

but sometimes words

are only silent syllables,

empty vowels mouthed

between lame consonants

not knowing where to spit.

 

In raw personal disaster,

how can anyone find words

that won’t do more damage

to an already fragile psyche?

Shame, blame, trite phrases

prove how small irretrievable

words only multiply misery.

 

Words elude both tongue

and pen when faced with a

child’s death by miscarriage,

accident, suicide;  Language

languishes in presence of

slow painful suffering  by

cancer, AIDS, dementia.

 

Who has an answer when words fail?

Image

 

driftwood

–dedicated to my brother, Dale, who is a safe harbor

 

“i am an island!” he declared,

staking his flag in the sand;

she shook her head laughing,

“how so?” but she already

understood his answers.

 

other shores beckoned her

yet he seemed content to

stay, digging in soft sands;

she paddled to a far harbor

uncertain when she’d return.

 

aren’t we all little islands?

“i mean, you’re there and i’m

here with an ocean of words

between us”…not to mention

thoughts, plans and dreams.

 

always creating ripples in

concentric circles, our ever-

widening waves roll outward

to crash in foamy surf upon

others’ glistening shores.

 

“why not leave your island?”

she urged but he insisted that

he liked his own beach view;

so we keep paddling rowboats

to reach each other’s worlds.

 

in space between, we send sea gulls and

glass bottles carrying messages of love.

 

 

______________

Thanks to Claudia at d’Verse for challenging us to use conversation…

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