High-Spirited Serenity

    Your mother's silvery soft spoken voice as she tells you she loves you

    The first word that escapes your small pink lips.

    Your wide open eyes, as they glaze over each sentence of To Kill A Mockingbird

    Your teacher’s modulated voice as she greets you good morning 

     Lyrics to the song that makes you carefree, joyful, exuberant 

    The lines the actors repeat a thousand times for the broadway play you saw in December 

    The vulnerable words, exchanged, describing your beautiful endless love 

    The last word spoken, soft, quiet, suppressed, unfinished

      ******                                          A pin dropped in a silent room     

     Before you can comprehend, all these words that had meaning to you

     Gone forever,

banished to meaningless sounds

         The endless abundance of words used and heard, 

The meaning of your moments

     Gone forever 

 Destroyed  by the carnage of one single, simple word