by Shabnam Nadiya

[To Women’s WORLD India, and all participants
   at the Power of the Word Colloquium: for making me think again
   of women’s sounds and women’s silences]
   
   Our voices are sunk gold
   precious and unknown
   precious and hidden
   precious and lost.
   Our voices are:
   precious.
   
   Precious is a word that is immeasurable,
   the heaviness of which sits immobile
   on our tongues. Our tongues are
   sometimes crushed, there are
   words that are too heavy
   to be borne by simple
   muscle, tissue, flesh.
   Words that are too heavy
   to spit out, that sit silently
   blind and bound in dark caverns.
   
   There are other words that
   unleash our tongues
   when they become
   birds that swoop the air. Their errant fire-crimson tail feathers
   of eternal grace,
   messaging the sky
   when we utter them.
   These are words that can bind
   like the unending unwinding of mythical saris.
   
   Other words bloom like sorrow-grass by untended roadsides
   with roots that
   reach upwards
   and downwards
   at the same time. Then there are words that are coiled tightly around our hearts
   contaminating
   our exposed flesh
   and unexplored desires.
   
   This is what we raise our voices to say:
   words are precious.