Beyond words

Beyond Words                                                                                          9-10-2014

I want to reach to meanings beyond words.

Words jail knowledge

Into neat packages

Like processed food on the grocery shelf

Tasty but with the nutrition sucked out.

A label for everything,

A category for every bug and bird

Building and grain of sand.

If it is new, undiscovered,

Previously unidentified

And thus not found in dictionaries,

Catalogues, or on the internet,

Then make a new word

To control the new thing

And don’t let it escape again

Into the realm of the unknown.

Capture all with words,

Forged in the past

With steel bands of tradition

And the ball and chain of history

Dragging meaning backwards.

But the unknown

 Is more than the known,

And I am caged by words

That keep me safe

From the brittleness of the inexpressible.

I am captured by my culture

By my planet

By the stars in the Milky Way.

Yet I suspect

That if I let go of words

The world inside a raindrop

Would let me in.