The Words Are My Breath

The Words Are My Breath

(“’Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,’ says the Lord.” Jeremiah 1:8)

One wrinkled brow could send me scowling away,
sunk in the debris of approval’s dregs.
The earth received my tears as often as
someone disagreed and split the infinite distance between
us into degrees of the absurd.
First to fear my failure (and my successes, I think)
I could plead for my life with the best of them
and then recalculate the trajectory of my words.

At the time I most needed a hand under my drooping head
the abyss echoed back every word that had curled back onto itself
and poked me in my dreams unsolicited. I saw myself.

I am troubled about the words that melt in the rain,
the promises spoken to air,
and bare ground with no promise of clumps of grass
or daffodils.

And yet I know the sun will have its way.
I know words are the spirit’s DNA.
I fear shallowness in my attempts to keep the
loneliness at bay.
Yet I cannot stay silent, the words are my breath
exhaled
and my spirit
unveiled.

The bruises of preselected subtraction
remain. I avoid certain domiciles and domains,
but have ceased to try to explain
the way spirit moves from Beginning Word
to beating heart
to breathing lungs
to tears and then droplets of words
that are silenced by some
and by others are heard.