wiki_z: Roses by Other Names

Mere happenstance of sound has brought
    Together choruses of words
With meanings disparate, unsought,
    Yet forced by poetry to serve
As members of a traveling band.
    With "love" comes "dove" and "from above";
"Command" is yoked to "understand".
    Conjoined with "moon" stiff verses shove
Both "tune" and "June", as if they meant
    Something related; neither do.

Instead, imagine accident
    Of language made the term for "true"
Be spoken so it rhymed with "moose".
    Might quadrupedal herbivores
Take center stage, along with "juice",
    As lyric praise of virtue soars
To fancied heights? And could the hue
    Of honest color be replaced,
So that instead of loyal blue
    The noblest tints would be puce-based?

The mind recoils. And yet, c'est vrai,
In other tongues it's said that way!

TopicPoetry - TopicLanguage - 2004-02-01

(correlates: Fading Traces, WindToThyWings, DiagnosisMortality, ...)

Roses by Other Names

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