Words take on value only insofar
as context emerges in relation to others,
with words, with an attentive reader.

Dollar bills acquire their value
in the trade, the need and want, exchange—
hand to hand, account to account.

Nuts and seeds, the little parcels, develop
value when taken into the warm embrace
of wanting earth, soothing springs, turning time.

Alcohol reveals its value to man
when desire and intention take it in,
when it forms a relationship with him.

A spoon expresses its latent value
by being held and used as it was meant to,
designed to mediate a unification,
a mingling of physic, appetite, chemistry, taste.

So too man’s value only exposes itself
in his associations—attractions transforming
potential into meaningful action, connection.

The rise and fall of meaning moves over
the averaging wave of dancing, syncopation,
the current bolsters bridging—a paired acrossing.

How much dies in uselessness, forgetting.
All of us are things without engagements.