Words Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE FGHIJ KLFMF JDNJE| The world does not need words It articulates itself | A |
| in sunlight leaves and shadows The stones on the path | B |
| are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted | C |
| The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being | D |
| The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken | E |
| - | |
| And one word transforms it into something less or other | F |
| illicit chaste perfunctory conjugal covert | G |
| Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands | H |
| glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder the slow | I |
| arching of neck or knee the silent touching of tongues | J |
| - | |
| Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot | K |
| name them or read the mute syllables graven in silica | L |
| To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper | F |
| metamorphic quartz cousin to the flint the Kiowa | M |
| carved as arrowheads To name is to know and remember | F |
| - | |
| The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds | J |
| painting the rocks and leaves with light then dissolving | D |
| each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it | N |
| The daylight needs no praise and so we praise it always | J |
| greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon | E |
Dana Gioia
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