All The Words Are Broken

All the words are broken.

I have these few words because I was near the bottom of heaven

when the languages fell in shards.

I nearly died, impaled

in their despairing crash.

All the words are broken, all the languages are dead.

I've sat like a child with a giant puzzle, assembling the bits

that remain.  Splinters chill my hands, blood from cut fingers

drips into the earth.

I have shackled each word recovered from the fragments

and dragged them to this page.  The work

is long: months, years, rounding up

a letter here, a syllable there,

building a fortress for their protection.

The Torah is but a vowel, the Bible a blurt,

The Koran is mixed with sand, unreadable.

Why, why are the words broken?

There was nothing strong enough to hold them,

to keep them from trying to speak the outrage.

They failed.  There are no words left to make it felt,

the outrage.  They exploded, trying to reveal the disguises of evil.  They vaporized

from the frustration that has tried down the ages
to cry against malice and injustice.

I have my work, long work ahead of me. 

My successor, and their successors, will work

to rebuild the words, to make new words, until language

is strong enough to speak with power

against the evil that bestrides the world.