Wednesday, March 27, 2013

An Essay on Words



A word is made of matter and of form.
The ink this paper drinks against its will,
or air you shake to spill these spots out loud,
this thing you see or say: that is the matter.

Now form cannot be seen, cannot be heard;
It is a ghost, a soul that sways from me
to you:--I tell you 'tree', you see a tree--
It goes from mind to mind by means of words.

Form does not live in words; it passes through
them, as the breath of God that gives us life.
In this we are like Him: from clay--or ink--
We crowd with words this tiny world called mind.

And shall we be a Gnostic deity?
Abandon creatures we have made to luck,
to hate, and then to die? or be as Christ,
and, ever acting from love, love unknown?

Let's then be Christian in our literacy,
And tend the flock of which we all are priests.
Recall that words are fragments of our souls,
And we the Word that makes them come alive.

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I'm not thoroughly satisfied with this, so I may yet make some changes to it.

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