Little Books

Not just the sacred collections,
The canon, the anthologies,

Complete, selected, this or that,
Not just the tales, not just the poems,

The essays, or the sentences—
Every phrase is a little book,

A biblia, built of linked words.
(We could argue words, too, are books,

But that leads to the temptation
Of just-so etymologies.)

The phrases are the little books
You want, the chunks by which children

Learn to make their way in the world.
You’ll know the first truly human

Communities not by stone tools
Or by hearths. By their containers

You will recognize them as you—
The artificial boundaries,

Reusable interiors,
And carrying capacities.

Phrases are the first containers
Made to cup the wraiths of meanings.