No Words

To write without words
is to give form to those feelings
that claw, sink and startle.
Those sometimes despicable, oft inexplicable,
why-why-why am I unable to unpick this… lake?
Or untangle this… cloud?

To speak without words
is to stare into a mirror, and wonder
with what ease your whole world is discovered!
Betrayed and displayed by the unspeaking tongue
known by each cell
since the time you were young.

To think without words is to plumb the unfathomable
to figure out time travel
to encounter nightmares, crying
“Back! Back!”
To go back and back, further and further,
to chart and take soundings of a cavern of lack.

And what does one scream, to an infinite hole?
It does not resist.
It does not contain.
It makes no requests.
It can only be heard,
listened and spoken to
in a voice without words.

—— Matt Schofield, Feb ‘25