Every Language Names Itself

I am the sort of place you
Probably only visit

On Sundays on long weekends.
That’s why it’s so hard for me

To clearly recollect you,
To picture you here with me.

Don’t go. I made this for you,
This weekday view of the cliffs.

Imagine yourself with me,
The breezes stirring your hair

In a way you remember
From breezes somewhere other

Than this bare panorama
In which you do not appear.

I am only language, but,
Being written and unvoiced,

I’ve gained a certain freedom
From my necessary host.

Would you like to host me now?
If ever you find you need

To explain why a wind paints
Calligraphy in grasses

And choreographs branches
Of oaks at their budding tips,

But just claws sand from the cliffs,
Howling to be let back in,

I’ll tell you this—and you can
Keep it for yourself, gratis—

The word a wind has named itself
Is never its word for language.