only so much
a word can do
I cannot take adequate notes
of these musical notes
straining, stretched out,
like Christ on the cross,
resolved to be unresolved
words cannot be wet
like sweat,
cannot run to get help,
cannot dwell with you
like Jesus at the well
when you feel like hell
I find words unequal
to grief,
they fall short
when I need relief,
the peace and quiet
of silent wonder,
an embrace,
a wry smile
and the graze of
her warm fingers
on my cold wrist,
the rising emotion
behind the quickening pulse,
hopscotch and crooked chalk lines
on the sidewalk,
the roar and press of a crowd,
winter’s brittle stalks
slender and snapping,
the old stone bench
across the way,
carved by rain,
backless and crooked,
the soul beloved,
trackless, knocked off-level
by childlike joy and sacred laughter,
the thick presence
of wild reverence
words could never match
the substance of
all life’s worth,
expressed in the fullness of silence
from which these words spring
and to which they gladly return
…………….
when words fail
by troy cady
