Thirteen Ways of Looking at Words

Arianna Rich

Words:

They’re sweet like

honeysuckle,

hiding in the bushes.

II

They’re the words

of mourning, when you get

a midnight phone call:  “There was a crash…”

III

Words can be soothing,

a gentle caress of your cheek

just when you need it the most.

IV

They’re lemon bitter, the hate words.

They jump down your throat and

Sit

like a lump,

no oxygen escaping and none slipping in,

threatening to bring tears to your eyes.

V

They’re Swift

like a shadow

in the night,

slipping through the darkness without a trace of light.

VI

They’re soft and swirly and light as a feather.

White cotton sheets,

rippling in the wind.

VII

They’re bright and bubbly,

popping, like drops of golden sunlight

into your sun-kissed hair.

VIII

They’re EVERGREEN.

Fresh and pure as young pine, hiding

behind the old ones in the mystical forest.

IX

Words are slick as a blade,

gliding across the ice.

X

tHey conjure and drEam and imagine

those siLly words.

They buiLd castles in the clOuds.

XI

There are words that rhyme,

but not all the time.

XII

Words are STIFF

hard

j-a-g-g-e-d

quick

sharp

Ridiculous. Illogical. Truthful.

Often impatient.

XIII

Words are the center of the Earth,

the glue that holds her inhabitants together.

Without words, there would be no poems to write

or stories to speak.

No Way To Communicate.

Yet sometimes — when words are needed most…

is the time no words are spoken at all.