A song of the rolling earth, and the 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 friend’s 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?
A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture,
are words, sayings, meanings.
The charms that go with mere looks of some men
and women, are sayings and meanings also.
The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,
The masters know the earth’s words and use them
more than audible words.
— Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”