Living Words

Broken bones mend

whilst words will

forever upend—

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words, are living things:

they have personality,

point of view,

appendages

that rub and rue—

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those we ought

to sever,

never to speak

as spoken to.

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Words are deciduous:

they form, then fall

between us—

for better or worse—

becoming the foliage

of our lineage,

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toothy leaves

marching along

the sycamores

of our past,

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advancing in season,

more

and more,

then falling back

as the days shorten,

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leaving barren the bark

that bore them.

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To carry on by becoming

barren

is fruitful

in its own way:

𓆱

Mother Nature's

eternal bouquet,

tossed to the next in line—

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caught off guard

by the golden sun

as dusk reclaims

the rose of dawn.

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Words find recess

in rituals for rest:

the way my grandmother

would digress

with the hummingbirds,

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the way she winked

in that golden hour—

her light burning

through her syllables,

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appendages

dropping down

on sorbent soil,

decomposed

of meaning,

saturated

with feeling—

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in the words, she became

the light where they fell,

like the sycamore,

barren.

𓆱

And she rests here,

in these living words.