My tongue was not made for silence
but my words cannot reach you now.
I leave them unsaid, lying awake
through dark hours of morning
listening to the rain whisper her words
of love to the leaves and grass
knowing how this will make things
grow right, even the little birds
huddle closer together on the bough
and the stars are still there
behind the storm clouds, never too distant
for their light to be lost.
My words cannot heal you, but I am here
never further than the star, a small bird in the rain.
They stand there rocking in the ocean’s murderous sway,
two shapes of lingering with farewells neither can say. Brendan of Oran's Well
For Magaly's Weekend Prompt, Art With Me, in which I have contemplated the power of words (and when it is best not to say them).
I love the partying verse especially - a glowing poem
ReplyDeleteLove it... the concluding lines... and how you begin. I feel that words are sometimes not enough to bridge a chasm. Speaking and listening goes together.
ReplyDeleteThis is so beautiful, Kerry! I resonate with words that are sometimes unable to heal another.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure your voice came to me from afar asking about words that haven't yet been found, wet and heavy enough for the spaces ripped into hearts. To write the poem is to search for those words. Philomela's tongue was severed but the nightingale she became turned nocturne into wing and wind. We sing on. Silence is the great void our tiny voices echo through.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, I would have no words of my own, were it not for the words of my friends in poetry. Thank you for yours.
DeleteThis is so delicately beautiful - sad and comforting all at one. It's just amazing.
ReplyDeleteEspecially poignant for me just now, as I happen to be in exactly that situation with someone, and it's an effort to remain silent though I know it is best. But your words here reach me, and it's a help to read them.
ReplyDeleteI am gratified to know these words reached out, though I can barely make sense of the silence myself.
DeleteThis positively speaks for me right now. So that's something even though you (we) can't speak freely to whom we want to, we can speak to each other (and all really) through poems.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great comment. Thank you.
DeleteThis is so beautiful, it hurts. I can feel that small bird in the rain. Sigh. Gorgeous, Kerry.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the best way our words can heal others is by staying in our hearts. I think this is difficult thing to do for anyone. And for those of us who live in words, the act is almost unbearable (at least, for me), but we do it anyway, don't we? Because we know the value of the right words... unsaid.
ReplyDeleteMy tongue was not made for silence
ReplyDeleteand yet to keep still, to know when words are not enough or will not be heard, can't be received - sometimes within this is another gift, to the one who listens .... and blisters with the moment ...
I really love how you've set this up, each stanza specific .... and how even within the darkness, in the night, you've conjured the magic of reaching for the light .... what lines: listening to the rain whisper her words
of love to the leaves and grass
this is such a quietly present poem .... has such strength and dignity within its grace :)
A sensitive difficult situation to bear, and to write about with such quiet.
ReplyDeleteI have just come from reading Brendan's poem, so this echoed response rings with both its feeling for me, and its own--the feeling of the listener, observer, the bird on the wire who sings back when and what it can to its own kind (and to whatever ear may hear)--the bird that also knows too well the loneliness of silence.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, Kerry.
ReplyDeleteYou showed the power of words and I felt the pregnant silence in the last lines. Great write!
ReplyDeleteah. so it is. piercing.
ReplyDeleteSo stunning, Kerry!
ReplyDelete