Beginning with Today

By Mildred Barthel

Empty pages of the journal

glare in pale anger at me,

as I quarrel with words:

Words—to be the legal tender

for all my private and public debts;

words—in pots watched toward the cautious

boil, so no one is burned;

words—blunt, cold, and drab in notion,

without a chuckle beneath the

strain of recording;

words—unguarded startlers, contaminators

contributing to shortened lives

into the next generation.

No wonder the pen is silent!

Opening the journal,

I stop worrying words

and write from love.