The word ‘awe’ has fallen into disrepair in the English vocabulary of North America. David Kanigan’s lovely post featuring the picture of a naked infant and Arthur Powers’ poem out awe in Juarez, gives hope that the lapsed vocabulary is temporary and that the children, and our love for them, may yet lead us.
- Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, Jan. 22, 2018
go to
some foreign place,
Juarez, say,
in Mexico,
and listen
to a large woman,
a powerful
laughing mother,
talk about
her children
crawling bare assed
on the dirt floor,
and about the way
roses grow
trellised on
an adobe wall,
and then
try to write it down
in a letter to a friend,
in English –
try to catch
the words
as she said them
until you recognize
there is no way
– no way at all –
to do it
except to take
your friend by the hand,
returning to Juarez,
and go to the woman,
the laughing woman,
and yes,
humbly,
listen
with awe.
~ Arthur Powers, “If You Would Read the Bible” from EchotheoReview
Notes: Poem Source – 3quarksdaily.com. Photo: George Marks
Views from the Edge 