Confelicity as Respair

Words can code for the rare
Thoughts you hardly ever
Care to express, hardly

Note at all, hardly dare.
It’s not healthy for words
To be too closely tied

To experiences
Of subtle happiness,
Joys that burst in the mind

Like berries on the tongue
At the news someone else
Has achieved some success,

The unexpected turn
For the thing with feathers
That fell, stunned by the glass,

But now rises, unharmed
As far as you can see,
To row on softer home,

Given talk is to words
As flying room to birds,
And silence as clear glass,

Given words that get dropped
From the shared air of speech
End as bones in the grass.

The song words still exist,
For now, although each year
There’s fewer left to count.