November 24, 2024The Most Beautiful Word
To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff.
—Donald Trump
Terrible and terrific come from the same root:
terror. Most days I assume difference
means divergence. Most nights my horizontal
body lies down next to my son’s to ensure
he grows up to be a tender-hearted vertical
citizen. Last night, it snowed up the hill
from here, over a foot, but only rain
where we are. It is a failure of empathy
to not recognize how another person’s weather
might turn before yours. For years, graupel
was my favorite word, the term for soft
hail that forms on falling snow and makes
a rimed crystal. I love the idea of gently adding
to something already moving. Bishop
wrote that Florida is the state with the prettiest name
but the ugliest politics. We collaborated
on that last part. I think madre lactante might be
the most beautiful word, although technically it’s two.
I can’t understand why so many elected officials
want to impose a high price on love. The root
of the issue, as I see it, is a fear of stepping outside
of themselves for fear of seeing themselves more
clearly. Do not be afraid is the most repeated
command in the Bible, which, to be honest,
is protesting a bit too much. On the same page
as tariff in my childhood dictionary is tarboosh.
The stressed whoosh of that melodic second syllable
gets me every time. This morning, I buried
a mouse that had crawled inside a toy farmhouse
and died, one tiny paw on a cloth window, no way
of seeing the other side.
from Poets Respond