“It was further necessary that he should be able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and to make them stand as marks for the ideas within his own mind”
John Locke
An Essay concerning Human Understanding
Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 1

Its atoms are invisible to me
(if even atoms exist)
Its metaphysical essence beyond my reach
Even its color and smell may waver with the day

I know it,
think about it,
act as a result of it –
not by it
but by its word.

The thing is
what its word is.
And the meaning I take
on any given day
for that word.

We think in words
We know by words
The thing – Its word
Are they the same

And of the thing said
the thing said of another
the thing said of self
So too of this
It is not the thing which is said,
it is its word

We recognize other in words
We label other by words
as do we self
The thing – Its word
Are they the same

It starts as merely perception,
the entire universe.
It becomes reality by words chosen
consciously? unconsciously?
The thing at the start
does it even remain once become a word

The matter of words
The matter of reality