A Song of the Rolling Earth
(extract)
A song of the rolling earth, and of words according,
Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?
those curves, angles, dots?
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground
and sea,
They are in the air, they are in you.
Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds
out of your friends' mouths?
No, the real words are more delicious than they.
Human bodies are words, myriads of words,
(In the best poems re-appears the body, man's or woman's, well-
shaped, natural, gay,
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of
shame.)
Air, soil, water, fire - those are words,
I myself am a word with them - my qualities interpenetrate with
theirs - my name is nothing to them,
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air,
soil, water, fire, know of my name?
