The Wisdom and Waspishness of Words

I write now not of the language of love, But of the love of language . . . How a word tastes on the tongue, And the print sears the eye, How the iambic beat of nouns and verbs Is like soft rock music . . . a gentle bass. Words line our life with silk And some clothe it with the rough shame of sackcloth, They bring and heal loneliness, Permanent in their passages. We are the wearer of words, They buoy us when we are in deep waters, And people our dreams with Shangri-La delights and dooms-day terrors. Only by looking in mirrors and clear sunlight Do we strip ourselves of their realities.