Image by Dennis Flinsenberg/Unsplash, Public Domain Dedication (CC0).
Words That Matter
On Being Gathering, 2018
Our airways are so full of explanitude,
its continuacious blowharding of thoughts,
worthy or un, impossibles silence.
We might speak smile, nod, Namaste eyetouch,
conversing in polyglot politesse.
We might rebounce to the original
vocabularies of community,
the names of our beloveds, thank you, please.
We might triple axel into new words
as yet unmaggotted, unfuckified,
to remunerate silence for our trespass.
We might sign up in the poliversity
for Communication Between Mysteries.
When I listen beyond words to silence,
your words matter more than their said meanings.
“Words That Matter” by Marilyn Nelson read live at the 2018 On Being Gathering. Used with the permission of the poet.
Listen to Marilyn Nelson’s On Being interview, “Communal Pondering in a Noisy World.”
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