I’ll say a word: “sadness”
and give you a thorn in bloom,
the world and you seem tinted blue
and filled with bitter perfume.
Sadness is a world you see,
“the wound and the eye are the same”
reaching down to the chalky ground
where the bones and the dust remain.
But sadness is only a word you see
the world overspills the eye,
a dull warm ache, a need to relate,
confusion persists as to why.
So I’ll say a word: “sadness”
but sadness is only a word
beneath cement, a deep lament
above it, the song of a bird.
Toby Chown 