Tongues of Silver-Gold

Death and life are in the power of the tongue

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I have always fought to speak, grappling with my tongue like an amateur snake charmer. Watch out, it bites. Talking shouldn’t be this hard. My mind pours through books and shelves and massive libraries of thought in mere moments, and even when I try to look a little closer it scrambles, hiding in the shambles. Count to ten—you won’t find me. If I create vast enough vistas and pockets of majesty, my teeth lock me inside, a prison of bone causing my words to echo in the cavern of space. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t get the words out. They aren’t slender enough to slip through the bars and rip through the silence of sound.

—Boundaries. Walls. Defenses. Borders. Lines. Limits. Fences. Barriers. Ends

In death I have found life.

Every vivid, starving thought,

word and comment, texture and observation,

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song and speech, whisper and murmur

and talk are traveling from my head

to yours. Instant communication. When

was the last time you told a story and the listener

felt the burn of sun on your skin, the unique tickle

of your hair curtaining your face? Heard the deep,

tingling roar of cicadas orchestrating the southern heat

of night? Saw your favorite shades of ocean at 7:21pm

off the coast of Vigo? My thoughts will talk with yours.

We easily cross the boundaries

of language—this is no tin can tied

to shoe string. If your eyes meet mine,

the windows to the soul will open and gossip

like neighbors might. Even the dead, among

who I mingle, share a word, or millions like dew-drop stars.

Like the angels dropped us a line

and tongues of silver-gold.