words are like pebbles
each one smoothed and rounded
by time and the constant
grinding of one on another
each with its own
particular shape, texture, tone
see or rather hear
how they all cluster together
in a raucous rabble
how as waves of life
break on them
they jostle, they babble
and see too how as time’s tide
works them and wears them
they infinitesimally change
yet bear on their bodies
the strange marks of the past