Logophile

I The world begins with Words.  Start with imaginary letters, like  seeds that sprout into words  and branch phrases and  canopy sentences Sentences that flourish into intangible forests We speak in a thousand different tongues in phrases, in air Rooted as deep as Amazonian Redwoods. They stand for eternity. II I remember as a child when my dad drove me to the library It always seemed such an adventure bookshelves shelled worlds nobody has ever seen Secrets no one has ever told people no one has ever met  Before me.  It smelled of seafaring spice of  an Olde, Middle Earth the echo of metal swords a distant lion’s roar Like I said, My world begins with Words.  III The radio crackles  like firewood in the car We cannot see it. And yet The way the correspondent purrs out the weather Warms until the cold flees westward down the spine.  Voices mingle with the sound of the engine Lively, momentous, present And for a moment I can see them sitting in the passenger seat, apparent  recanting the night’s news as if tailored just for me.  I have always wanted to warm a room. IV  The word ‘logophile’ comes from the Greeks whose own live long after the bones of their poets  Have bequeathed themselves to the sand they came. "I know that I know nothing" "Do no harm" They stand taller than even the collapsed pillars they built. Perhaps the Greeks knew the world better than  We may ever, in their simplicity. Or perhaps they knew that they knew nothing But to simply speak it meant everything.