“There Are No Words,” “Que Será – Mother’s Stare” and “Peace”

In Issue 47 by Russell Willis

“There Are No Words,” “Que Será – Mother’s Stare” and “Peace”

There Are No Words

“There are no words…” with tragedy

Or times absurd or ends unknown

Is tragic in its own accord

For words may be all that we own

For words may be our covenant

The flag that waves above the fray

The whisper that our conscience hears

Our troth to pledge, to vow, to pray

The vow that never this again

Whatever “this” compels our swords

Our rage, our loss, our desperate wars

Against our own best selves, our words

As words come back to haunt and hurt

To tear or bind or cast away

Their power’s clear and undeterred

With words we’re swept into the fray

There are yet words that ring with hope

Those words that wake those better selves

Some words of truth beyond reproach

To save us from our earthly hells

So even as the words are choked

In throats that mourn or gasp in dread

The only time “There are no words....”

Should only be when good lies dead

Que Será – Mother’s Stare

Caught in a vortex of serenity, concern, joy, and exhaustion

Expression unfathomable

Chin resting on an arm

Eyes locked on her precious one

asleep for now,

maybe not for long

a gift

peace to be followed by not-peace

but sleeping in deep peace, for now

As she contemplates

a canvas yet to be filled

a journal with mostly blank pages

the opening bars of a lullaby...

Peace

not to be kept

but loosed on an unexpecting

world, though unexpected

treasured, dreamed

when free, freeing

uncoupling fear from uncertainty

ministering to fear’s wounds

tethered to hope by

hope's quiet voice

soft breath

still presence

unshakable if offered earnestly,

heartbreaking when love rebuked

and stillness only

keeps the peace

About the Author

Russell Willis

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Russell Willis emerged as a poet in 2019 and has since appeared in over thirty journals and twenty anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas, was vocationally scattered as an engineer, ethicist, college/university teacher and administrator, Internet education entrepreneur, and pastor throughout the Southwest and the Western Great Plains for two decades, finally settling in Vermont in 2003 with his wife, Dawn.

Read more work by Russell Willis.