Some Thoughts After Listening

to a Speech by the President

The way he said it,

the way he said the words,

As if they were only words,

As if they were words,

As if they were sounds,

As if sounds were words,

As if he could say them,

As if he could sound them,

As if he could hold them briefly on his tongue,

Spit them out like wads of sound,

Watch them fall in air,

Watch them move in air like things from mouth to ear,

Like objects without power of their own;

As if they could leave no mark in air,

No trace of words fallen from his mouth,

No dent in space of words said and heard,

The way he said the words

As if they cost nothing,

As if words were free, costing no pain or terror,

Paid for with insomniac nights,

As if words were facile

Requiring no sacrifice,

As if they could not condemn  nor bless,

Start a war or end one,

Send men to gallows or forgive -

It was not the words he said that chilled my soul,

It was the way he said them.