Don’t Search the World for the World

Since you read and talk a lot
Of what is not us through us,

You take note of those of us
That point to those things not us

That are rare, that you have not
Had in your life but through us,

Through books, old tales, half-dead poems
And such, things the names of which

Were once dulled like coins from use
But now seem all glow to you—

The woods, the stars, the dense songs
Of birds at dawn, whole days spent

With no news from the wide world,
The scent of a hearth, a lake.

You seek out those things in hordes
That you know from tales, from words,

That have their worth to you now
As things you just know from words,

From terms, from their names, from us—
Bare bones of old earth, plain air.

You search your world for us; you
Don’t search the world for the world.