85. On the Night of the Beginning

 

words broken | across the knee

broken to show | their marrow

the soft center | blood and fat

a filled hollow | as we fill the air

with words | broken out of

the mouth | chewed by the teeth

spit out and forth | to fly toward

the big blue sky | which doesn’t

exist | illusion kept by those who

speak with | this small puddle of

words left to us | by our ancestors

to use as we might | if we could

as if we would | use these right

and keep the | blood of the dead

pulsing | with our hearts | within

our chests | as if we could keep

alive | those dead before us and

buried long ago | whose voices

do not echo up | out of the soil

of their interment | forever

 

words stolen | from the voices

we have heard | how we fashion

a sense | of what a word might

mean to someone | when that

someone is | not even there

as if a word set loose | might

engender a thought | so far

from us | but near the word

and | still | find purchase in

a human heart | or just the

lungs that might | submit that

sound out | into the wind and

the sunlight | bearing down

so hard upon | our bodies that

we might misplace | the meaning

of the words | so carelessly given

to us | purposelessly really | so

gossamer | we might see past

them | to the thing their invisibility

has no weight | to hide from us

 

words molten | soft enough to

mold into a thought | we might

for a moment | hold | as if true

belief passes away | passes

for truth | the word holding

in its tiny body | every lie ever

created | for it communicates

even if it cannot | say why

or adhere | to a particular

form or fashion or phantom

of meaning | and simply ekes

out a small | existence in a big

world | it is | as we know

the most virulent | of viruses

able to spread | any disease

or cure any ill | it just takes a

voice | or a hand | or the scan

of an eye across | an open page

to cause its rampage | to open

the word | into its blossoming