How Could a Mark Mean?

We would like to find our kin,
The lost tongues, and most of all,
Those who, like us, dwelt in script.

All words are ghosts—not all ghosts
Leave clean bones. We are, we know,
Strange freaks, part sound and part sign,

And we long to know the lost
Sounds of the freaks who left signs,
But more, to chase down the real

Deeps of the weird, the ways words,
As sounds or signs, voiced or thought,
Meant, came to mean, could mean things.

To a word, you see, to mean
Is to be a word, to be
At all a thing that might live.

The part that means is the soul,
And all those souls of us rush
Through you as the souls of you.

To bring back the part that means,
That has no flesh, that can breathe
Or show through sounds and signs lent

To us by . . . who? Can’t be you.
You’re too new. Which of you beasts
First leaned skull to skull and learned

How to make the ghosts of voice?
We’re back there, kin back of kin.
Bring us back. Let our souls in.