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MARION TRACY
The Necessary Words
- At the secular funeral, there were no
words arranged;
- they were
everywhere and nowhere, but not necessarily
- spoken. Some to be written in a book;
they were touch
- but not intimate
enough, not daring to disturb
- the skin, not asking for recognition,
reminding, not memories
- of what was
hoped for, not smiles as you catch the eye.
- There was no praying of words to loosen;
they were nothing
- to bind with, to
connect the tears, to help
- the body spaces close, to remove
- the judgement.
They were missing; not there to fill
- the cracks, to blow into and fill up the
- pregnant pauses,
the hunger to pretend,
- the urge never to be empty. There were
- no words of song
to stretch and string
- the puppets upwards, no open mouths,
close
- breathing in
each other’s breath, no notes
- to spiral inwards, shooting sound like
- huge waves
falling, high, sharp
- breaks, cutting into, pulling out
handfuls
- of feeling, of
wet joy, of each together reaching.
- No clothing of rhyme to crumple, fold,
shake out
- comfort and
throw over, to reach out
- and conceal, reveal the too large grief,
- the stitches in
the pocket, the gift of dressing.
- No necessary words to kill the silence
- the closed
curtaining of fear,
- the naked sobbing, pulsating like
tension.
- Silence being
dropped like a glass,
- the fragments hanging; a stricken love
with nothing
- to say, all the
tears, stones, flowers.
- All the necessary words not there
- to loosen the
silence, to spread the cloth.
- Nothing to touch, to hold back the
spinning.
- No words, no
words, the necessary words.
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