POEM: COULD I BUT SHOW YOU

COULD I BUT SHOW YOU

               

Could I but show you how a word can grow

into a thorn that lodges deep within?

The softest places of the hardest men,

you wouldn't be so quick to let one go.

In silences, defenceless and alone,

security and self-esteem descend;

ambitions cease and aspirations bend

in the victims of a fatal verbal blow.

                   

If I could show you how a word can rise -

bring laughter, bring excitement, bring rapport,

bring nations out of poverty and war -

perhaps your speech would seek a different guise.

What problems of this world could be deterred

if we revered the value of a word?  

         By Corey Harvard