Sometimes words come in a mighty rushing wind
Received. Like the Holy Spirit filling the first apostles
An unexpected gift of clamoring tongues in your mind
You don’t know which to reveal first – each a miracle.
Sometimes words sprinkle as droplets of rain
Across a parched landscape. Here, and then vapor
A tenacious few collecting to trickle at first slow
Rivulets coalescing into streams, even rivers
Determined to carry meaning to its destination.
But mostly words sit in the mind like stones
Sharp, smooth, boulders, pebbles, shards
Abandoned in unformed piles.
Caught in mind’s crevasses.
They sit and they weigh and they wait
To be more. To be monuments.
•••
Grace E. Welch studied writing at the University of Waterloo. Her poems have been published in The New Quarterly, Feathertale Review, the 2006 and 2011 Bermuda Anthologies of Poetry and various other journals. Her poem, “Return of the Turtle” won the 2006 David Raine Memorial Poetry Competition and was featured by the Blue Ocean.
tongues of the ocean 