Words are floating in the air like
Dragonflies in summer.
They reflect on placid waters
Only ruffled by the silver fins of tiny fish.
They dangle ripe and tantalizing
From the brambles growing by the train tracks.
They soar and cartwheel in the azure sky.

Words are lurking in the shadowed places
In the forests of emotion, and the dells
Where sunshine is a seldom visitor.
They tumble like a child’s balloon
Down waterfalls of jubilation.
They pounce like kittens from the top of cabinets.
They curl up in a mother’s lap.

Words can be illusive as a chimera
So difficult to capture in a pen,
And once ensconced, impossible to lure back out.
Words are currency to purchase immortality -
To bargain with the vicissitudes of life
And bandage wounds of disappointment.
They build a wall and often hide behind it.

Words are letters rearranged a million times.
The songs of living, loving, laughing life.
They can be the voice of brilliant minds,
The moans of breaking hearts and souls,
The sigh that sounds the same in every tongue,
The cry to God when all else fails,
The one true tool that separates us from the Apes.
ljm