Where terror shattered our speech, there came some who showed us how to make a song with the silences between our words. We listened, and the poets taught us how to meet what was coming. Look, they said. When the enemy explodes the bridge between the beginning and the end of a thought, only the form changes. What was concrete is now a fibrous web, and all of us in it. What was solid is now porous, and like other porous substances, we now absorb what may come. While the enemy creeps its silent convoy, we are here, and as we listen, one among us begins to sing. Soon, our bodies are saturated with song. The fullness is almost too much, but here we are, holding.
***
Inspired by stories like this of people singing while sheltering from attack. And by poets across time and nations, united against war. With love and prayers for the persecuted people of Ukraine in this hour. May you continue to hear one another, and hold.
