The bug zapper flashes Morse code,
A spark for each dot and dash - saying - pay attention.  Words are being
Kindled from these fried insects.  The rise and fall of empires depend on
Each death.  Our elliptical orbit brings another year of language.

 

Why would you take words to return to God?  Why not bundles of wheat?
Oil in clay jars?  Fresh baked bread.  Why not take salt?
Red wine, purple cloth, things more like worship?
Depending on the alphabet is risky with its creation of ambiguity
Scratched onto vellum, paint on papyrus, so much lost in translation.  Poems

 

Written on napkins and grocery receipts.
I can’t deny that I’m compelled, enticed even,
To thrust my fingers into a bowl of letters and return
Holding on for dear life, writing ‘lifeboat’ just in time,

 

Yielding to the possible safety of the right word.
Only language can tell our stories.  Some letters generate echoes of the
Utterly haunting past, mistakes, the resonance of the earth.

 

Any word can be a talisman.  I’ve always wanted to
Nail down how civilization evolved into writing.  I want to write the word
Dromedary because the cadence mirrors the way it moves.

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Ridiculous of course, but I’d ride that one-hump camel to the oasis any day.
Even the unvoiced desire can eventually be put into words, and spells
To cure warts, whip up a tempest, make a magic potion.
Unless words carry different weights like numbers and can be
Rounded up or down.  Someone show me the runes!
Never mind, I’ve wandered off again,

Too full of questions that can’t be answered
Overwhelmed with finding a word to rhyme with orange,

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Grappling with the alphabet, the number of syllables in a perfect line,
One too many or needing one less. It’s futile. Please take my words God,

Do whatever it takes to return to me.

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