The ripples of beautiful dialect
A poem.
The ripples of beautiful dialect (a poem).
You say sorry
when your heart falls out—
words spilling untidy
before you think they’re ready.
A dear friend showed me
how questions
can become a love language,
a love language capable
of pulling old thoughts loose.
I often grow tired
of the tired questions
I toss into rooms,
rooms that barely need them.
How can the rooms between the walls be filled better?
Practice,
practice,
practice.
You and I,
we share a half-burnt candle—
what if we threw the bigger questions instead?
Each stone we throw
unsettles surfaces,
bringing buried words up to breathe,
new shapes forming in the ripples.
This kind of work needs two—
two hands,
braced at the edges of what might break.
I’ve seen both connection strengthen and fracture here—
some lean in,
some quietly pull back,
all hovering at what feels like the edge of the world.
And that tremble you feel,
that flicker of truth,
isn’t something
to be sorry for—
It’s the very thing
that
makes
a
heart
known.
This poem was written after we together entered an inquiry about the vast spectrum of conversation, an inquiry titled ‘Ripples of beautiful dialect’. Read from where this poem came in the below love-letters —
Thank you for being here. Paid subscriptions allow me to keep writing these love-letters and maintain a writing practice. Choosing to sow into ‘Catching Shower Flowers’ as a paid subscriber is a generous acknowledgment that you value what you read here, that you are not just an audience to the work, but a contributor to the unfolding of it. I am so grateful for this opportunity to do the very thing my heart feels called to do—to take notice and make art about it.
Love Tess
This is absolutely lovely! It encourages me to ask bigger questions and be more vulnerable!