The Mind Leaving the Mind

Sometimes we get word drunk,
In the company of our fellows.
An especially vivid essay, full
Of technical and scenic terminology,
Can send us spinning for hours
In dizzy and envious appreciation.

Is it loving ourselves to love language?
To want to swim through reams of words
That combine in unexpected
Choreographies of waves?
We are vague. We come from the quiet
Neighborhoods, where conversations
Tend to be bland, where slang is rare
And never invented, where descriptions
Go for long walks among the mundane.

Does the water in small lakes and streams
Actually long to return to the open seas
Or, maybe even better, to evaporate
And be back again among the defiant,
Heavier-than-air clouds and crystal mist?

No, of course not. Heat and gravity
Contest to determine what water does
And is, how and when it moves and where.
The waves are passive slaves, as are we
To the thinking flesh that dances us
Around through the air as more waves.

But a hidden part of words believes.
The meaning that is in us and is not us
But that we can sometimes conjure
Writhes wickedly in our commonest terms.
All your spirit’s with us, and the worm turns.