All the verbs in the world could
not eliminate the need for nouns.
Nouns sit, stubborn in their meanings,
bricked up against the winds of change.
They are not what they are
but the names of what they are not.
They are words.
Not cars. Not bowling balls.
Always,
Nouns are well-defined,
having a low tolerance for ambiguity.
Notice the Latin fin in finite and define.
If that wasn’t the case, one noun
would mean everything,
and therefore mean nothing at all.
A rose is a rose is a rose, Gertrude Stein said,
stating the obvious.
green stems, sweet smell, sharp thorns.
Although a rose in a bride’s wedding bouquet
is not the same as a rose in her funeral spray.
Nouns are inert.
Verbs mingle,
get involved,
take action, .
get things done.
Verbs move nouns around
like pawns on a chessboard.
The next time you think poorly of a noun,
marvel at the amphibious ‘pause.’
a word both verb and noun,
the act of stopping action or the temporary stop.
Without nouns,
verbs would be nothing but blurs,
running with no runner,
jumping with no jumper,
loving with no lover,
a fish fry with all frying but no fish.
No tartar sauce.
No knife, no fork, no spoon.