I

The world begins with
Words. 
Start with imaginary letters, like
 seeds that sprout into words 
and branch phrases and
 canopy sentences
Sentences that flourish into intangible forests
We speak in a thousand different tongues in phrases, in air
Rooted as deep as Amazonian Redwoods.
They stand for eternity.

II

I remember as a child when my dad drove me to the library
It always seemed such an adventure
bookshelves shelled worlds nobody has ever seen
Secrets no one has ever told
people no one has ever met 
Before me. 

It smelled of seafaring spice of 
an Olde, Middle Earth
the echo of metal swords
a distant lion’s roar

Like I said,
My world begins with
Words. 

III

The radio crackles 
like firewood in the car
We cannot see it. And yet
The way the correspondent purrs out the weather
Warms until the cold flees westward down the spine. 
Voices mingle with the sound of the engine
Lively, momentous, present
And for a moment I can see them sitting in the passenger
seat, apparent 
recanting the night’s news
as if tailored just for me. 

I have always wanted to warm a room.

IV 

The word ‘logophile’ comes from the Greeks
whose own live long after the bones of their poets 
Have bequeathed themselves to the sand they came.
"I know that I know nothing"
"Do no harm"
They stand taller than even the collapsed pillars they built.

Perhaps the Greeks knew the world better than 
We may ever, in their simplicity.
Or perhaps they knew that they knew nothing
But to simply speak it meant everything.