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Monday, May 1, 2023

How do words stick?

Stentorian: here's a thing I know

(When a voice is big and booming) So

How came I by this knowledge? Show 

Me where and when it came to grow.


Was it in a book I read and read

Until the phrase grooved in my head

And though I'd never heard it said

Or looked it up, it stayed. Or did


It filter in from magazines

A Reader's Digest, or Seventeen,

Or from the paper, smudging ink,

Or a cut-out pinned by the kitchen sink?


Words on words erumpent burst

From screens and passersby; at first

They flow and fill some inner thirst

And lie, dormant, for better or worse


Until circumstance calls one word 

The setting right, it must be heard

Vocabulary blooming, thick and fast

With words that stay, and stick, and last.

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