\u201cWords\u201d by Dana Gioia is a favorite of mine. Submitted by Elizabeth Knight<\/p>\n
The world does not need words. It articulates itself
\nin sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
\nare no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
\nThe fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
\nThe kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.<\/p>\n
And one word transforms it into something less or other\u2014 Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds, (http:\/\/www.danagioia.net\/poems\/words.htm)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWords\u201d by Dana Gioia is a favorite of mine. Submitted by Elizabeth Knight The world does not need words. It articulates itself in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path are no less real for lying uncatalogued and … Continue reading
\nillicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.<\/em>
\nEven calling it a kiss<\/em> betrays the fluster of hands
\nglancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
\narching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.<\/p>\n
\nname them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
\nTo see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper\u2014
\nmetamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
\ncarved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.<\/p>\n
\npainting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
\neach lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
\nThe daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always\u2014
\ngreater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.<\/p>\n