Words & Incense
13 April, 2009 | 24 comments | Category: for.the.love.of.words!, peace & conflict, prose.tales
via getthebubbles @ flickr
by Sofi, a thinker, word artist, a lover of books, dialogue & people
Words are like incense. Underneath their crude obvious delights of fragrance and effect are hidden… Incense and words, full of mystifying aromas, used in counteracting the unpleasant, assaulting the senses, easing pious souls and amusing the masses. Like incense that has just been put on a burner words too rise slowly threatening to fill up the room. It’s funny how, though one stands at a distance, one always smells the exotic aroma before the smoke spreads. While examining them suspiciously at a distance, words too, always manage to reach me and manifest their effect. I constantly feel their assault on my senses – bitter sweet but powerful all the same. I thought of people before me, this must have been how it felt like: the thick presence of words washing down dry throats and heating up dull blood in exposed veins. Shouted words shaking up beings too afraid to hope, too afraid to think. Whispered words and confessions, breaking insecurities away. Written words, breathing light and feeling up voids within. But unlike incense, words last trapped in space (if enough was said, wouldn’t space have been filled to the brim?) Words are fascinating. It doesn’t stop with mending and breaking, there is travel involved! Haven’t those that belonged to revolutionary leaders, unrelenting lovers, visionary thinkers and skilled writers boiled my very own blood and prickled my senses ages after having been uttered? So words must time-travel, very much unlike anything.
The history of uttered words tells stories so varied yet adorned with the crown of powerfulness. The likes of Churchill won wars through words, the likes of Shakespeare worded life, death and all things in between. Uttered words mobilized masses, founded cities, and awakened decaying minds at the city gates; and at threshing floors and kitchen tables words strengthened feeble hearts, cultivated identities and straightened wrinkled thoughts. Doesn’t the whole of humanity bear witness to the therapeutical outlets of inexpressible groans in poems read and songs heard, in prayers chanted and rallies marched?
As strong as I feel words, I have come to believe their unbearably loud absence. I feel as if too much was unsaid and enough was not meant . Too many words hang uttered but unreceived in space…the “mis-said”, the “too late said” and the ”unsaid”, too weak to wash away tear stains and heal defeated ears, restlessly lie trapped unable to reach their destination. Words uttered are blissfully present in my here and now making me taller and bolder; imparting wisdom, hope, faith, laughter and love… but what of those that lie unheard, ”unwhispered”? If the good Lord sets loose all the unsaid words trapped in rotting crosses or flowing tears (and certainly in moments lost, rules set and caves unexplored), would more dead-men-walking awaken? Would fear and timidity and the thorny fences of pretension burn away? Actions have spoken louder since utterance was born but too little was said of them… if enough was told, wouldn’t legacies outlast lives already lived and influence those yet to be? A wise man once wondered how history would have unfolded had someone befriended young Hitler walking down the streets of Vienna. I too wonder, with the abundance of words, could cruelty have been out-saturated, word-diluted “wordiluted” to its very absence? I wonder, would lukewarmness be “worded” to passion? Would what my people taught me saying “silence is golden” be finally broken giving birth to freer souls and love fed aspirants bold enough to embrace change?
I dream of days when indifference, injustice and the cruel grip of silence would have to make room for uttered words.
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