Never Born Words
When I teach I tell my students-
think about what you're saying. Understand the words you're using.
Words like
ambivalence, and all those mixed emotions. Unless you mean ambiguous, when it could go either way. To kindle isn't just for fires and romance, but also a bunch of newborn kittens. (A kindle of kittens is a real thing evidently.)
Talk about infatuation. A short-lived, obsessive passion. Puppy love and all its squandering. An ESL student still doesn't understand, so I stop. I ask when she first met her husband, how did she feel? I look her in the eye. The class gets quiet as she thinks. A blush, rosy and insistent, creeps up her neck, into her face. She giggles. I yell, That's it!
It isn't enough to know and say a word. Understand it, feel it, use it, I say. Be excited about this new found arsenal on your tongue.
I wonder what to teach next.
Morose was on the list, but I am thinking, too, about unrequited. But would it be unrequited love or unrequited infatuation? Either one is morose, even if it's more pouting than depression. Realize, too, the words I pick mirror me. Little bits of my story are falling into their hands from my mouth. An accidental intimacy. Almost don't want to teach them words at all now. It's a hefty gift to hand over.
It these words are never born, they shall never live and die. I don't want to be responsible for such powerful things. Can you lament the light of a star that was never born?
I give them words; they shape their sky with them.
Words like
affirmation. Auspicious. Lamentation. Aspire.
They learn to shape the sounds of their lives. There is no such thing as a never born word.
All words are simply waiting.
think about what you're saying. Understand the words you're using.
Words like
ambivalence, and all those mixed emotions. Unless you mean ambiguous, when it could go either way. To kindle isn't just for fires and romance, but also a bunch of newborn kittens. (A kindle of kittens is a real thing evidently.)
Talk about infatuation. A short-lived, obsessive passion. Puppy love and all its squandering. An ESL student still doesn't understand, so I stop. I ask when she first met her husband, how did she feel? I look her in the eye. The class gets quiet as she thinks. A blush, rosy and insistent, creeps up her neck, into her face. She giggles. I yell, That's it!
It isn't enough to know and say a word. Understand it, feel it, use it, I say. Be excited about this new found arsenal on your tongue.
I wonder what to teach next.
Morose was on the list, but I am thinking, too, about unrequited. But would it be unrequited love or unrequited infatuation? Either one is morose, even if it's more pouting than depression. Realize, too, the words I pick mirror me. Little bits of my story are falling into their hands from my mouth. An accidental intimacy. Almost don't want to teach them words at all now. It's a hefty gift to hand over.
It these words are never born, they shall never live and die. I don't want to be responsible for such powerful things. Can you lament the light of a star that was never born?
I give them words; they shape their sky with them.
Words like
affirmation. Auspicious. Lamentation. Aspire.
They learn to shape the sounds of their lives. There is no such thing as a never born word.
All words are simply waiting.
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