Today’s post is a golden shovel, inspired by a quotation from Sylvia Plath. I heard someone say it in a podcast, and the words stuck with me all day. It’s a keen observation on what words can – and cannot – do in times of grief and struggle. Mix in the grief that keeps popping up as a theme in my world – both mine and those I care about, and this poem came out:
I ask myself, what
does standing on ceremony
mean, if really we are just speaking of
the way words
shatter, or the way they can
work to patch
the shards, all of the
ways they bring peace, comfort, havoc
“What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?”
– Sylvia Plath
“Conversation Among the Ruins“
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 
Very golden!
We don’t always realize the power of words. They hurt. They heal. They crush. They encourage. They comfort. They antagonize. Yes, words, no matter how big or small, are powerful.
That’s an incredibly powerful strike line, Lainie – as is most any from Plath – this does pierce the soul and stay there. I want to think on it a long time, myself. You have used so many words I savor here: ceremony ( I know it’s borrowed, but still) shatter, shard…the brokenness you allude to is very real and hard in these words, as is the inherent questioning about words when grief continues to carve its painful abyss. Yet… beyond “doing,’ or knowing what to do, words are all we have. It’s that or silences. Sometimes one is needed more than the other, or some measured mixture. I pray for peace to thread its golden way through the gray tapestry of grief currently in your world and in that of those you love. I leave here feeling very meditative – carrying your words with me. Just know you are a golden thread yourself in my world, friend – here’s to golden shovels for continually digging out and recreating.