Idea without a Name

All these names, how do they form
Ideas? The measured movement
Of the sun that the Chinese
Used to denominate time

May survive as an idea
In the etymology
Of a pictograph

But not in the spoken word.
What ideas are possible
With names but without
Literacy? The Roman

Alphabet needs abstractions,
Can’t think through calligraphy,
But compact or discursive,

The ideas in any name
Need study, contemplation
And unpacking by other
Assistant ideas.

Conversely, what is coded
In syntax without a name?
That would be impossible,
You say, syntax lacking nouns.

Even the colorless green
Idea sleeps furiously,
A dragon coiled in its names.

The idea without a name
Hides in the fields and gardens,
In the rivers and mountains,
In the forests of numbers,

In all the ideas with names,
In their etymologies,
The concrete and the abstract.

The idea without a name
Dreams in the cave of the sun,
Gathering names like children,
Tucking them in for the night.