6. Poem prompt:
Words! book-words! what are you?
Words no more, for hearken and see,
My song is there in the open air—and I must sing,
With the banner and pennant a-flapping.
~Walt Whitman

Disclaimer: This is a mood, not a…daily life, not the reaction sympathy and help always bring, or even often bring.
But it exists, and I had nothing else to write today.

There are too many words, and they mean nothing.

"It is as Aslan's wills."

"Perhaps she'll be better in the morning."

"I am sorry."

"How can I help?"

It is as Aslan wills, yes, but why? Why would He allow this, do this, let this continue? Perhaps she will be better in the morning; perhaps. "Perhaps" is no certain thing to hang one's hope upon. The morning will come, lifting the night after hours of darkness slowly crawling, and she will be better, or she will be worse. Uncertainty cannot be lifted by the word perhaps.

I am sorry that you are sorry. I am sorry this pain spreads out in ripples. One tries to be grateful for sympathy, but that, too takes energy. All my energy is with her.

And there is no way I can think of to help. Help as you can. Do not ask me how to help, for I do not know either, and it is just one more proof that I cannot control or meet this need, I cannot help—that she is in Aslan's paws.

I am sick of words, though they still spill from my mouth in floods. I want words to mean something once more.

I want life to be more than one wait for a future I am not sure I can face. I want a future for her, with her, fully healed—fully alive.

Sometimes…sometimes there is one thing that can give meaning back to words. That thing is music.

I dare not ask the musicians to play, for she might hear the lament and it might harm her. Sometimes the song stays in my head, humming, running in circles.

But sometimes I leave, I find a place no other can hear, and I let the music pour out, a flood of words constrained into channels and orderly rivers, rhythm and meaning born of order as well as sound.

Sometimes the music is a cry. "Can you hold me; / can you hold me; / can you hold me in your arms?"*

Sometimes it is a reminder that hope exists, a banner of sound flapping in the dark and empty night.

Cry of pain or cry of hope—I must sing.

And I am heard.

*NF feat. Britt Nicole, "Can You Hold Me."