Yes. We spend too much of our short lives

Chasing the mot juste, that phrase, that image,

That will reconcile all, bring all to mind.

To ease the pain and to make amends.

But there is no end to the way of art

We must learn to wonder as we search

For the right word to express. What?

That fleeting sense of something

Far more deeply interfused

That has its home in the setting sun

In majestic music and in the mind of man.

Words have many uses, tell many scorching

Lies, create many and varied identities

Depending on the soul of the language.

Is it mellifluous like Italian or French?

Or gruff and haughty like German or Russian? 

Les fleurs du mal reposent sur nos esprits

Comme un brouillard humide et toxique.

Or, maybe, it is just our barbarian worship

Of the self that erodes the sanctity of the word.

We neglect our language at our peril

Our identity is created and expressed iin words,

Language is the explicit and implicit

Foundation of our culture, our way of life.

We have a  new and dangerous breed of censors

Who have weaponised mediocrity,

Made lack of offence a stinking virtue,

Tell us what we can and cannot say or write or think

But for poets, sentence by bloody sentence,

Word by bleeding word the unknown

Is brought to measure, as we see

Into the heart of things....