by Bryant Burroughs

I once asked my words
“Where do you go after I’ve breathed you into air?”   
My words answered, 
We who are born in love and care
fly to her heart and are welcomed there.

Though mere words, she feels us
and we sing ourselves to her heart:
      I love you, 
          I’m sorry,
               Let me help you,
                    Forgive me, 
                         Thank you,
                              Good night,
                                   I’ll do that for you.
As we sing, she weaves us into a cloth of Heaven,
A cloth that ever grows.
And she sings back to us:
“Two halves now whole,
Two lives, one heart, 
never again apart.”
And we mere words are blessed
to hear the song she attests.

Then I asked my words,
“What of those that are mean,
and hurt the very one I adore?”
My words answered,
She who has loved you since nineteen
knows you’re good at your very core. 
Few mean words make it into her clean
heart and, ashamed and poor,
for words are not made to harm,
soon are entranced by her charm
and are changed, joining our song.
And our song grows ever on.

Bryant Burroughs writes stories and poems as reminders of those things he hopes are real and true. He and his wife, Ruth, live in Upstate South Carolina with their three cats.

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