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Words

These words wrought from a shallow kiln
Grow brittle in the cool
Now and then I’ll extricate one
That lights the room for a night
But the day is always brighter
Always giving voice to the words I could not form
Writ large on some immutable tablet of stone
As a sun that compels the eyes
To both squint and see
In one brilliant opus of enlightenment
Never again will it be night
Until I turn back toward my kiln
And blow asthmatic breath to coax the fire again
Drawing forth the thin filament of language
That dimmed conductor of understanding
That warms and warns for a time
But only till that time
When words say less than silence
When radiance makes me blind
And in those moments when I with purpose
Turn my eyes up to see again that which the day shows
I will write
Write because I can’t speak
And even then I will be mute.
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