Ways of Speaking by Laura Grace Weldon

Ways of Speaking

by Laura Grace Weldon

I’m weary of those who talk
in slogans stamped and packed
by someone else, like
long distance truckers paid to drive
without knowing the weight
hauled onto that dark highway.

I want to walk, instead
where I can read the body’s slow knowing.
Where each thing watched long speaks aloud.

A spider tossed by the breeze casts
one strand thin as faith. As it takes hold
she dances between twigs and waits
within a design both beginning and end.
When the web breaks she starts again
tiny legs speaking in ways
we’re meant to hear.

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Laura Grace Weldon lives on Bit of Earth Farm where she’s an editor, nonviolence educator, and marginally useful farm wench. She’s the author of a poetry collection titled Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013) and a handbook of alternative education, Free Range Learning. Although she has deadlines to meet, she’s more likely to be hiking in inclement weather or nattering on her blog.