Word is Energy

Word is Energy

Energy isn’t made or lost,
it just changes form, or so it says
in the science books,
but what about the word?
Do you think a word is energy? 

What if a word sprang up from my lips
and from it formed a sappling,
then a tangle of branches
on which the birds built their nests,
and from branches grew strong limbs
where birds would gather and sing,
while they impregnate the earth?

From busy beaks,
the fruits drop
like phrases in the dust,
planting seeds,
from the mouth to trees
with arms outstretched
clothed in leaves of green
growing thick and broad,
shielding its children from the sun.
All of this life from just
one single word?
 
And what was that word
before its conception? 
A thought? Matter? Ether?
An idea born from virgin mind,
untouched by cynic's pen,
dripping through your fingers
like sap onto paper
made from the corpses of trees,
and whispered through your windpipe,
like the wind through branches,
singing its sorrowful song in the sky?

This energy, its like reincarnation,
endless cycles of creation
like the diagrams in the science books,

of clouds holding rain, water falling,
flooding, rising, holding, falling,
flooding like cities with levees breaking,
rising like the voices of the people,
holding like the final note of a song,
falling like rain, like words from my mouth, 
each one of them nourishing soil.

We can all be a Johnny Appleseed
of poetry, of song, of story,
spreading our words like seed.
 
Once there was the word,
and the word was good.
And it began in the heavens,
in the minds, in the souls,
and was spoken and forever shall exist.
At least, that’s what we are told.

If the word is energy, what is the poem?
Is it the forest we cannot see for the trees, 
The spirit we cannot wrestle from form?

If words are our children,
conceived in love or need,
by divine accident, or by tragedy,
made right by love, 
then poetry, my friend,
poetry is our family,
our community, our country,
our Earth.

Poetry is everything,
It holds all the energy
of every single word
spoken or written,
in anger or in peace,
from black or white
or hearts of green,
and all those in between. 

Its all about the words,
and the colors readers see
when they absorb your energy. 

The poem holds the power
of every word within,
strung together,
letters touching letters,
meaning something far greater
than each word alone.

If we stand together as one,
maybe, just maybe,
even we can be poetry.
 
And if we choose to hide the gift,
where would the energy go? 
What volcanic eruption would occur
if we swallowed the power of the word?
If we refused to touch each other,
if we are silent and hoard our words,
if we're afraid to share our voices,
to speak our words out loud,
and plant them in the ground, 
will we all become extinct?
Will we be the next creature
on the endangered species list?

Imagine, no more fundraisers at the zoo,
or breeding programs to bring us back,
no t-shirts or marathons for the cause,
no colored ribbon magnets on our cars,
a place where our words will be heard no more.
Oh, they won’t disappear
but who in the world will be left to hear?

Energy cannot be gained or lost,
but it can be transformed
not unlike us all.
Changed with the courage
to speak our words out loud,
to write them without reserve.
to plant them in the soil, 
watch them grow from seed.
Perhaps, with open minds, we'll see
words really are like energy

and poetry is each one of us
standing together
and growing taller 
as we speak.



SWPoet
4/30/09