August Thoughts

It's been quite a while since I had a true thoughts post. I've decided I may use this as more of an actual blog, not necessarily cataloging my daily occurrences but my "deep thoughts."
This was in a recent National Geographic:

"Do you know what saved me from becoming a cold-blooded murderer? My language saved me. There is no way for me to be hateful in my language. It's such a beautiful, gentle language. It's so peaceful." Then White Plume started to speak in Lakota, and there was no denying the words came softly."

The power of words: Their importance cannot be stressed enough. A whole language can change someone's outlook on life. My biggest regret in writing poems so quickly and publishing them with little time to think them over seriously or fine tune the word choice is that the diction is frequently "off" or slightly skewed. Selecting the right word is imperative to the success of a poem. If I could, I would look up the meaning of each and every word I use and ensure that the connotations and denotations are in line with exactly what I wish to convey.
On the other hand, this would not produce results and would more often than not end in many unfinished poems that could probably pass as acceptable. On this subject of poems languishing until a final form can be finished: My latest poem, Ballad, is a poem with a composition date stretching back to the first day of the month. Entirely unintentionally, I completed the poem on the last day of the month. The poem could certainly be taken as being superficially and figuratively symbolic of my July poems: Anxiety about originality, increasing wordplay and experimentation, but eventually returning to the same formulas that kept me going in the past.