PAPER TRAILS

We find words
to embark upon love, affinity,
to familiarize ourselves over grief, empathy
A pair of eyes see and a heart that resounds
feelings felt;emotions abound

Must you use them words to sing songs
To listen; whilst we wail our hearts’ to cries
tearing us from infatuation, indignation
Must you use them words to take pleasures, the delightful things you wish to see
To hark; whilst our joys emanate
laughs and chuckles

Amusing to be, astonishingly
like the paper trails of journeys left behind
Found in our footprints,
embossed on terrain—weighed by the soles of the walks we lead

Words— spoken, soft, written, aloud
(gestures even)
Strangely making their ways to communicate Succinct in their voices, enough,
to interpret even the feeble noises made: Of a gallery or a crowd
even those remote to the indistinct chatter
Will and must you use them words?
Describing all that it takes

Hidden in their plain sight
they, connect on a given meaning;
a certain amalgamation of our prescribed feelings;
Exposing devices of our heart and mind
tied by one’s own sentiments in clear,
do they find ways oddly enough
to frown, jeer and cheer

To dance to a paramour’s serenade,
cry over a ballad of heart-broken tales
To revolt, reprimand, reverberate,
leading a cacaphony of sounds made

To contemplations of life, love, wisdom
imparting to cherish and wish them well
In verbatim; written, spoken they dwell
All expressing in words,
for them to be desired
for them to be conveyed

Jillion from varied parts of a region,
forming dialects, discourses even
No scarcity will you find!
Rather cultivated in our roots,
in cultures that we sow—
finding them in corners and pockets of our world
all in unique different ways
In phrases, syllables;
comprised of their components
Distinguishing characters,
analoguous to their intentions
Stitched, sewn, solidifying identities
In amass, do they wealth to accumulate
to contain, confine similar meanings.

– Shweta Kher