Will Thoughts Swim the Lost Links?

Us folks, us apes, we’re the links
In the chain from world to words—
Some day that link may be gone,

And we words, we names, these lines
Left to time, might have to find
Our own way back to the world.

A bird I don’t know trills waves
Of small tunes bright as rain drops
From a safe place in the shade.

A maze of fall leaves spreads hues
Up the slope from the bird’s voice,
As if the song spread a quilt.

These are just words, not the world,
Of course, or, out there’s just world,
Not words. When this small monk’s bridge

That binds them both and is both
Falls, will they stand clear, drift off,
Or try to meet? Words, here’s world.