A poem about words, and trying to shape them to express the images in our minds. Words, the only way we have to communicate, though sometimes so unwieldy and inadequate.

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Words

Words that fly at me, I gasp at and grasp,

They fall at the center, they fall ‘til the last,

I’m fumbling and finding

The more that I try,

The more they outpace me

The more they deny.

I scream in a fever

I call and I cry,

I battle them down, and I hold them in lines

I feed them with feelings, with commas and space,

They wriggle, they writhe and then laugh in my face.

They slip through my fingers, just leaving a smudge,

I’m trying to bargain and not to misjudge.

The passion that fed them,

That taught them to fly

I’m failing to catch it; they won’t form in ranks –

Halfway through a sentence, I’m stumbling on blanks.

I want to compare them, with sunshining days,

Make fresh brilliant statements that pause and amaze…

Instead, I still fumble, I try to be heard,

The pain and the wonder of life put in words.

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Arua 2022