What Use Are Words

What use are words
when the earth shakes
and lips fall silent
under the crush
of brick and concrete.

What use are words
when all of the worlds 
libraries couldn't hold 
even a portion 
of the suffering and grief
that weighs there.

What can be said
when there is no vocabulary 
for what was portrayed 
in a single photograph
of a father holding the hand
of his lifeless daughter
reaching out of the rubble.
Such tragedy creates
sacred ground.

There is only a silence
that reaches to God, 
and blessed arms that
hold shovels to rescue 
the living
and bury the dead.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2023

Poem

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Lawless Avatar
February 8, 2023 at 5:26 AM
these words put a frame around those pictures....
Willason Avatar
February 8, 2023 at 3:04 PM
Thanks for this thoughtful comment John. A reminder, I guess, that poetry and indeed all art, doesn’t shrink into irrelevance in the face of such monumental suffering, probably just adopts the posture of a prayer raised to the unknown. Appreciated, Regards
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