“The Most Beautiful Word” by Alicia Rebecca Myers (original) (raw)

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORD

To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. —Donald Trump

Terrible and terrific come from the same root:

terror. Most days I assume difference

means divergence. Most nights my horizontal

body lies down next to my son’s to ensure

he grows up to be a tender-hearted vertical

citizen. Last night, it snowed up the hill

from here, over a foot, but only rain

where we are. It is a failure of empathy

to not recognize how another person’s weather

might turn before yours. For years, graupel

was my favorite word, the term for soft

hail that forms on falling snow and makes

a rimed crystal. I love the idea of gently adding

to something already moving. Bishop

wrote that Florida is the state with the prettiest name

but the ugliest politics. We collaborated

on that last part. I think madre lactante might be

the most beautiful word, although technically it’s two.

I can’t understand why so many elected officials

want to impose a high price on love. The root

of the issue, as I see it, is a fear of stepping outside

of themselves for fear of seeing themselves more

clearly. Do not be afraid is the most repeated

command in the Bible, which, to be honest,

is protesting a bit too much. On the same page

as tariff in my childhood dictionary is tarboosh.

The stressed whoosh of that melodic second syllable

gets me every time. This morning, I buried

a mouse that had crawled inside a toy farmhouse

and died, one tiny paw on a cloth window, no way

of seeing the other side.

—from Poets Respond

__________

Alicia Rebecca Myers: “Reading about Trump’s proposed high tariffs made me reflect on the high stakes of this election. It still astounds me that what one person finds beautiful is at the root of another person’s fear.” (web)