! ! Verbs V. Nouns Poem by Michael Shepherd

Nouns…
they’re dead things; names
you give to things to render them
immobile; to make them yours, your very own; fit for nothing
except scrapheaps, museums, dictionaries, armchairs;

but they make you feel good;
you have control over their world;
you don’t have to think about them any more;
they’re all locked up safe in your collecting-box,
the noun for which is head:

you can sound important with nouns:
this government’s raft of measures
for fiscal stimulation of the economy

but verbs… ah, verbs!
you can’t own them, push them about,
collect them, be important about them;
they own themselves;

they’re outdoor words: going about their
lawful business, doing what they're best at,
measuring their own life as they work;
adapting themselves to what needs to be done
which nouns can’t do without a committee
and then it’s too late; happy
to be themselves, being; even
being while they’re doing.. don't you wish
you were a verb?

Nature – (that’s a verb, by the way,
not a noun) – is all verbs; evolution
is a verb (not a theory):
DNA’s a verb – you can’t own it
like a noun…it doesn’t even
want to own you…

so, be a child – put your boots on,
run, splash, shout look at all those verbs;
how bright the world, what fun,
nothing to put in your pocket to take home

(or if you do, it’ll change to a noun, your noun,
in your pocket, in your drawer, gathering dust:
verbs don’t have the time to gather dust…)

verbs are for observing; verbs are for
seeing for the first time; wow! Verbs are for
inventors, explorers, tree-climbing,
coming home after a day of verb-watching
tired and looking forward to tomorrow
and sleeping soundly, maybe even
thanking, laughing, giving, living;

God is a verb.