Why Words?

Why Words?

I wonder what it is
about the setting of the sun
that brings the pen to paper,
a new poem begun.

Why waits the flow of thoughts
 for three slumbering heads
and the calling of my bed?

Why now, when I’m resigned
to another day lost and gone
and I turn to take my rest
do I feel that yearning in my breast?

Like warriors reach for swords
I reach for keys or pen,
but then again,
no, I reach for words.

Words:
the intangible substance
with which inexpertly
I frame existence

Words:
the shadows of starlight
wrapped lazily around a single thought
as if with their gossamer tendrils
they could frame it, shape it, define its edges
and place it in the hands of another.

Nay, and ne; naam, and nein,
as if any guttural spewing
of the lips and tongue could express
even the memory
of the things I have felt,
the visions I have seen.

No, words will never do,
best cut them up and make Paper Mache
to patch and pat around the Milky Way,

Post-it-notes,
they are little labels
that I stick-stick-stick
to folks and fables.

I cover the whole world
in pulp and pen,
and why do I do this
time and time again?

Because language,
words and rhyme,
is the closest man can get
to the expressions of the divine.