Title poem from "The Mother of All Words"

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In the earliest day’s of what became the COVID pandemic, before we shut ourselves in, and before I started putting together a collection of poems that would eventually become The Mother of All Words, I wrote this poem:

The Mother of all Words

That time the second largest word – Hate – slammed
clumsy sideways into that forgotten box of once-
essentials left for dust in the corner next to the attic stairs.
Physics and nature and chance being what they are,
end over tip goes the box, and what should roll bounce flop out
but the Mother of all Words: Love.

“Remember me?” But more statement than question,
no rancor, no accusation, but acceptance
that what is born out of Love does not always take
the path of least resistance and with resistance
comes friction, pain, sometimes hostility,
maybe even Hate. But never indifference.

And when there is still enough heat and light
to generate Hate, there’s still hope
of melting hearts and changing minds,
turning and returning to Love.
 

*****

As the various poems that would eventually make up the book started coming together, I realized this one in particular captured the heartbeat of the collection. And so it became the title of the whole.