[stylist] an essay

[Barbara Hammel]

Yeah, I know.  Surprising, huh.  I’ve written something that’s not a poem.
While it may not be as well written as what my husband would do – he writes letters to the editor in the Des Moines Register – I think it’s a good start.  I was working on this when Bill posted his so thought I’d share mine, too.
Barbara Hammel


  "And to the two thirds of you who didn't vote yesterday, I hear you, too.”
  As the mother of two children who have little to no speech, it baffles me how folks can just overlook this comment.
Just what does this really mean? I figure he either has much better telepathic skills than I do or he's talking feel-good nonsense.
  Anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm always trying to get in my kids' heads but to no avail. I cannot know
their minds or feel what they feel. I cannot hear what they are not saying and it breaks my heart when I'm fairly certain something isn't right in their worlds.
  Please, can anyone tell me how he can hear what 200 million people, whom he doesn't know and can't care intimately about, aren't saying when I can't even hear what the two, whom I love with all my heart, aren't saying?
  I know liberals claim to have the market on empathy, but this is beyond the pale. And don't tell me that they are just words and to take them with a grain of salt because a politician said them.
  Words have meaning and folks would do well to come back to that understanding.
They are not just things one should lightly toss around and then need to try gathering back in. Once words are tossed out you can never get them back. You can never gather them and find them being the same words you said.
  Don't tell me I'm missing the meaning because it's deeper than what the words say. I won't believe you. I understand words have connotations and denotations. ,But everything we write, everyything we speak, everything we think are words we choose to get across the point we want to make in the sense we wish folks to understand.
  It all comes down to the fact that you can't hear what someone is not saying. You can only guess based on your experience with the person and what you want to think they are saying.
  I'm just glad I'm not one of those he hears what I didn't say. I've voted in every election since I was old enough to vote.



Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.--Robert Frost