Palimpsest

Words – (Rated X)

 

I hold these words within my hands

Lightly touching, and caressing 

Trying to foresee where they will go,

How far they will carry me in their wake.

And what shore they will cast me on.

I feel their texture through fingertips

And a subtle structure beneath their surface,

A subtle substance within their promise

That once unlocked

Is free to roam.

 

Words impart their meaning

To their neighbours 

Beneath that silky surface,

First one word and then the next

Passing on and on

Reacting to your purpose

And rising to the measure of your intent.

Words radiate beyond their borders

Affecting words in other places,

Cascading from word to word and to the next

With consequences

That were unintended, or maybe not.

Words arise and words descend

As they tumble forth 

From thought to page

Without regard for effect

Or how they may affect the whole.

 

Words arise and words descend

Spinning in ever widening orbs

Skipping lightly to the subject

At the centre of this vortex

Giving close attention 

To every point along their path

From here to there

And back again.

 

Ah, but words strike home

When skillfully applied

Revealing unexpected conclusions

And certain long-foreseen results.

It is the culmination of a Herculean task

But the writer is helpless to direct

Their course.

Simply their destination.

 

To form a perfect harmony

Of meaning and of understanding

They may, by simple chance,

Evolve into a poem of simple words

That satisfies the needs of its creator.

It may reach Everestic heights of rapture

And so, transcend the words of its creation.

 

Not all the poems of all the poets

Proceed in this fashion.

Some praise scenes of common beauty

Seeking to make them exceptionally so.

Some praise Grecian urns

To turn their imperfections inside out.

Some seek insubstantial truths

Or look for ravens and lost Lenores

Or counting the many ways of love

Only to discover that their ways fall short

And they have nothing more to say.

 

Words applied with patience and with care

And attention to the smallest detail

Can produce a poem that is, indeed

Greater than the sum of its many parts

It is a thing beyond meaning or understanding

Beyond an understanding of its meaning.

It carries its immortality

Within the structure of its words.

Un affaire de coeur

Un affaire des mots

Un poeme de coeur

Un poeme des mots

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