Words
by James Harvey
Suppose that God does not make birds,
But something else, for lack of words,
Identical in every instance —
Unnamed, unknown, but with existence.
Imagine no modality;
Ubiquitous totality;
Everything is still all there,
But without words, we're unaware.
Or are we? Ah, now that's the game.
The world's the same, as some would claim.
Just what in life would be withdrawn
If played with all our language gone?
No representation of sensation;
It's taxing, when up against creation.
In other words than words incurred
Wordlessness is just absurd.
But chances are that we'd get by,
As birds do now; they even fly.
There's something lost, but much more gained
When Nature's framed by how we name.
As being, God is intervening,
But words for us make up the meaning.
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