I'm Adely Mone and this is the slowdown.

I don't know about you, but for me, the last two years have put a strain on language.

It's not because language hasn't helped or soothed or distressed or pummeled us.

It's that I'm used to being able to supplement language with physical presence.

For me, and maybe for many of us, the way we say I love you is just by showing up,

by being there, sometimes quietly, wordlessly, but there, in person, nonetheless.

Of course, since our travel has been restricted and safety concerns abound, we haven't always

been able to show up. Through the FaceTime screen, I say to my grandmother, I love you.

I love you, and she says it back. But I can't help but wish I was in her little apartment,

handing her flowers and person, sharing our traditional special occasion in and out burger together.

Words through a screen are useful, yes. But they remain only that. Words through a screen.

The other day, I had a craving to see my loved ones so badly, it physically hurt.

Now, we are slowly learning to enter the world again, safely, so that we can stand side-by-side

and stare at the birds or see a smile come over someone's face when they don't think you're looking.

To touch someone, to hold their hand, to sit in silence over a puzzle or a card game,

there's worth in that. Here I am, a poet who believes in the power of language, and yet here I

am also saying, I believe deeply in the power of touch or togetherness of moving beyond the page

and into the sunlight together. Today's breathtaking poem speaks to the importance of saying,

I love you, without saying the words, how love is made of those little moments of togetherness

that bind us indelibly to each other. Don't say love, adjust signal, by Tyree Day.

No one said hawk, we just looked at the sky in the middle of a conversation. No one said when the

melons were ripe, they were thumped and listened to, for note we liked, a note like cane. No one

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