The sparkler
amazed the dark
with the beauty
of itself.
The child
held it
with all the wonder
it could muster.
The dark
seemed scared
of it.
There were no words
to describe
how it lit up
our little minds.
“FULGENT! ”
her father proclaimed
as if he had been
reading my mind.
“FULGENT! ”
I said
(as if I had misheard) .
“You know...
bright...shinning...radiant! ”
He carefully constructed
his trap of words
to capture
the experience.
I hadn’t
known.
I wished I didn’t
know now.
I had loved it
in a wordless way.
I looked
at the dictionary bobbing
in his throat
pretending to be an Adam’s apple
secretly hating him
for naming it.
The child sensibly
not letting it past the whorl of her ear
continued
to look at it
(like I)
beyond words and only
in wonder.
Dónall Dempsey
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-word-too-far-for-scarlett/
