Verba Volant

(Hommage to Archibald McLeish and Walt Whitman)

Verba Volant

A verse need not mean
But be,

Its song climbing skyward
On sound —

Its symbols allusive,
Not true.

*

Yet its words,
The reverse,

They cannot, too,
Hang there sky-borne
Suspended in time —

No, to mean
Words still need

To touch down
Palpably

On the ground.

Poets may gainsay themselves;
Words may not.