“Physics Is Words”

The world is not us, but we are

Its and are it and part of it.

How is it we’re of it, in it,

And yet somehow estranged from it,

Possessed by a strange distinction

To be different than what we are?

The commonest answer is blame—

There must be something wrong with us,

With our ancestors, with our age,

With our current cultural norms,

Systems, habits, ways of thinking.

And then we fall to quarreling—

Whose habits? Whose ways of thinking?

Whose ancestors? Whose culture? Whose?

Usually, mostly yours. Sometimes,

A little bit, not so much, mine.

We’d strike closer to blame the world

For giving birth to us, but who

Among us is willing to cast

The first stone against Mother Earth,

And who believes in God enough

To call the real villain divine?

The world is not us. It made us.

What are we? We’re names of the world.