The world that welcomed the divorce

Of word and thing is now outmoded.

The two are one again. The world

Of their new marriage has exploded.

And in the aftermath we watch

As brilliant particles of truth,

Like stars that tell us where we are,

Bring our gaze back down to earth.

Words and their meanings now adhere

To eyelash, fingernail, and throat,

And travel through the dark canals

Inside us. All that was remote

And held at arm’s length from its name

Has found a place upon the tongue.

The words, though new to us, are old

Words to an even older song.

How did it go? In every name

The letters bring a soul to life.

In every soul a world is coiled

Around a staff of joy and grief.

And every grief renews the bond

Between the body and the soul.

And every joy thrills with the fear

Of shattering what had been whole.