You and I speak the same mother tongue,
yet we cannot understand each other’s words.
“Why do you like me?”
“When did I ever?“
“Then why do you hate me?”
“I never did.“
The words you throw arrive at different destinations,
facing one another like travelers changing at different stations.
Someone says that all eight billion people
each speak a different language.
Even if that is the way language runs across the open grasslands,
if we could understand the different syllables at every joint of speech,
would sorrow, too,
become one?
The distance between words.
The depth between words.
The breadth between words.
They are only the landscape seen from the Tower of Babel.
The measure of a life that travels between heaven and earth is different.
The First Word,
clothed in flesh,
teaches us love.
When I move the tower of distrust and resentment outside my thoughts,
I can hear it.
Though our ears may hear differently,
our hearts hear the same.
“I love you.”
“So do I.”
