A Word is Not a Home
A word is not a home
but we set our tables
between its walls,
cook meals, annoy
friends, abuse ourselves.
Sometimes I misplace
one, and can’t find
my house, much less
the window’s desk
or the chair behind it.
But if I wait, something
always takes form in the fog,
an arm, a ribcage, a feathered
hope struggling to emerge.
Inept, I take comfort
in these apparitions,
accept their offerings,
lose myself in mystery,
find shelter there
in the hollowed curves.
And we know you have found them when they reach the page (or our screens).
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Thanks, Ken. They occasionally come home. 😄
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Aw; that was beautiful.
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Thanks very much, Randy!
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A home is sometimes not a place but a person whom you can be your most authentic self.
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It can be elusive!
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I like this one a lot, Robert
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I’m so pleased it resonates with you. Thank you!
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Ah, yes. Well said, Robert. Words are indeed homely.
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I’d be homeless without words.
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Me too
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Thank you, Robert, for this. Brilliant. Moving. I shall carry this with me (I hope!) as I go, myself, through this latest transfiguration. A last, difficult, and, perhaps, most valuable lesson for someone who has spent a lifetime as a writer. Randall Jarrell wrote, “Words are worlds.” Weirdly, his metaphor works only because it breaks down. Otherwise, it would be trivial, wouldn’t it?
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The words always return, but not not consistently when I need them. Damn them! And thanks, as always, for your kind words.
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Superb catch of writer’s dilemma …
Sometimes … something better than that eluding shows up, as though I needed to be emptied out to receive it … and later to find the original sought … immediately grateful it had wandered …
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Yes! Sometimes what we think we want isn’t really what we need.
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