Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Song of a Single Word

“The road is a word, conceived elsewhere and laid across the country in the wound prepared for it: a word made concrete and thrust among us.” 
― Wendell Berry

“PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, 
whether through malice or through ignorance, 
remain branded in his memory, and 
sooner or later they burn his soul.” 
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” 
― Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada

Midweek Motif ~ 

The Song of a Single Word

One day our Sumana sent me a song she translated, and said: 

I tried to translate it, but it's quite hard to do it in English. I lost all the cadences of the beautiful Sanskrit words which themselves are songs.

This made me wonder if any of my words~in English, German, Latin or any language at all~contain songs all by themselves. Or does a word spark a song?


Your challenge: Chose a word which sings to you. Write a poem from its lyrics ~ or write a lyrical poem in answer to it. Enjoy!

Verb

BY PABLO NERUDA  
Translated by T.M. Lauth

I’m going to wrinkle this word, 

I’m going to twist it, 

yes, 

it is much too flat

it is as if a great dog or great river

had passed its tongue or water over it

during many years.

I want that in the word

the roughness is seen

the iron salt

The de-fanged strength 

of the land,

the blood 

of those who have spoken and those who have not spoken. 

I want to see the thirst

Inside the syllables 

I want to touch the fire

in the sound:

I want to feel the darkness 

of the cry. I want

words as rough

as virgin rocks.

(Found HERE) 

I never hear the word “Escape” (144)

Related Poem Content Details

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I never hear the word “Escape” 

Without a quicker blood, 

A sudden expectation – 

A flying attitude! 

I never hear of prisons broad 

By soldiers battered down, 

But I tug childish at my bars 

Only to fail again!

Insha’Allah

Related Poem Content Details

BY DANUSHA LAMÉRIS

I don’t know when it slipped into my speech

that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”

Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.

The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.

Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.

So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled

easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.

Every language must have a word for this. A word

our grandmothers uttered under their breath

. . . . 

(Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE)

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be ~  Predator and Prey !   )