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constance moore

  • Work
  • Teaching
    • Our Changing Planet - Teacher Leadership PD
    • Hello Love
    • Art Changes: Alameda Education Fund
    • KQED
    • How Art Can Help Center a Student Learning Experience
  • Writing
    • Question Everything Manifesto
    • Our Changing Planet on Ten Strands
    • Beware of Fools, Poems and the Ocean
    • This Poem
    • All The Words You Know
    • The Ostrich and The Vulture, Commencement Address, Goddard College MFA-IA, 2017
    • Nancy Johnson James - Moorejam Stories Partnership
  • About
  • Store
  • CV
  • Blog

All The Words You Know

by Constance Moore


All the words you know

fit

just inside

the palm of your hand

Don’t blow them away

Fragments

as scattered as your mind,

drift to far away places

like the family you once held close

Do not clench your fist around them,

a phrase

should not be crushed

or stifled

Do not wring your hands

in worry,

or bite your nails down to the flesh,

siliva soaked language is limp

and useless for you now

Do not fold your palms in prayer,

you are not waiting to be healed

You are a miricale

ripped to shreds,

a tome to be uncovered

Keep your mind and your hands open

Receive the best I have to offer,

black lines scratched on white paper

A meager inheritance,

I know

Use them,

not your hands,

when the blind rage comes

And it will come,

powerful and sure of itself,

erasing all doubt

These words are yours

Weapons, 

to wage peace,

brilliant and exquisite,

against all odds

You are a blessing

The world is waiting

Don’t blow it away

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