Sometimes There Are No Words

Sometimes,
When the mind is fuzzy;
Sometimes,
When thoughts congeal and stick,
And the body works on autopilot;
Sometimes,
When the walk is aimless,
And directed to investigating new paths,
New locales and stimulus for a mind that is trapped,
Refusing to acknowledge it’s blessings, and
Bringing terrors in the night.

There are no words.

And yet there are!
Here on the page they exist,
And pour forth in unexpected verse;
Trying to convey the feelings that come,
Like a vampiric friend,
A leech,
A parasite that will bring about its own demise,
with that of its host.

There are no words.

There are images,
Sensations, instinctive impulses,
And an exhausted numbness that must be respected.

Expressed in words, perhaps;
But not align to Western linear logic,
Not crafted to instruct step-by-step,
Placing one thought block on another,
Creating a path to follow to a conclusion.
Instead it just impresses,
a sense of being, and vagueness
that does not respect a planned
assault.

We must plan!
We must curate the garden that is our mind.
To avoid the weeds and tares that we plant,
Unwittingly sown, how I don’t know, into our thoughts.
But, like a garden,
Our labours can take time to bear fruit.
Like an ascent on Everest,
Planning is essential but not all.
The weather is capricious and must be respected,
And as with the mind, will alone
does not
always carry the day,
and we must
wait, impatient
or patient, while the weather
runs its
course, unpredictable but finite.

And then returns the calm.

Sometimes it seems there are no words.
But we plant and trust,
And wait,
That in time there will be a harvest.
And while we wait,
for me, there is music.

Wordless.
Accompanied by words.
Whatever.
It soothes and permeates the miasma,
Integrating with emotion at a different level.
Sympathising, uplifting, challenging;
The immense beauty that can be encoded in sound.
It is both intensely personal and communal.

A gift for which I am immensely grateful;
That soothes my tension,
And reminds me of all the other blessings I actually have,
And the feelings they will rightfully invoke in me,
Once the weather has calmed.

Sometimes there are no words.

Sometimes there doesn’t have to be.

Catharsis?

Words tumble and fall,
Like the bursting of a dam;
No longer able to be held behind the wall of his lips.

Turbulent and churning,
Insistent and relentless like the flow of a tsunami,
They proceed regardless of obstacles,
Smothering the countryside encountered in their path.

Embedded their flow is the detritus of frustration,
The debris of half-formed thoughts, lost hopes;
A conglomeration of random possibilities,
Jumbled together – injuring, abrading, concussing,
Energised by the force of the torrent that sweeps them along.

And finally,
When the outpouring of emotion has reached its peak,
The waters retreat,
Residing sullenly to the depths from which they arose.

In their wake the landscape lies changed;
Barren, exposed and tender,
Requiring care to tend, cultivate and renew.

A different land, damaged by the outburst;
He regrets the pain inflicted.

And hopes for redemption on all sides.

 

“… the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.”  James 3: 5-10