Words Are the Sum

1 As so-called quarks, so atoms before and through And after molecules, which too Constitute us awhile, pluming Through our slowly changing shapes Like beachscapes Through a duneless sandglass, say (I said, once) — all these So utterly forgetful, wiped clean As numbers with each new use, lint-free. How not so words, which pass our minds And mouths and ears from hind- Most elsewhere, on their way to elsewhere — why So? Words are the sum of their histories: rose And roke and no and blanketing snow. 2 So much less LEGO-like, click- Click together than like slick Tentacular Colonial hydrozoans tossed Together in the copper pots Of   predication — all cross- Shock and shimmery tangle — How can Anyone calculate semantic Sets so dervishly complex? How can we not expect not less but hellish Much more than to mean what we say? Then guess: How can we better but Hope to become in sum what We say when we say again love?