Meaning is a form of vanity

Meaning is a form of vanity.

It is the subtle workings

of self-appraisal

disguised behind the appearance

of state-able means.

As behind any spoken account,

there are deducible inroads

into the assumptions

and suppositions that provide

for one’s observation platform

to be rekindled

into opinion, judgment,

summary, or conclusion

as a simplified set

of what could be said.

Meaning, beyond its agreement

about the naming of things

or the description of how it works

or the definition

of what is commonly understood,

serves a vast array

of subtler activities within

every person’s self-registry.

From where within

that meaning takes up the cause

of a stasis as a definitive,

as meaning is held as a constant,

as frozen in time

that it can be brought forward

through time and stand

as indefatigably as the now,

is a vanity

against the sacred flow of being.

For there is no constant,

except the constancy of change.

We, by the method of meaning,

seem to exchange still pictures

with each other

by our conversations

and agree to ignore this time lag

while fascinated with the results

of our say.

That we hold agreement

to the words

and defend it to be so

by reciting meaning in our minds,

preoccupies us

with a layering of interpretation

superimposed over the currency

of the now.

As such, we stand

before the oncoming of now

claiming that we are present

yet we are dressed up

in meaning as bystanders,

brokers, custodians, role models,

victims, success junkies, negotiators,

nostalgia presenters, individuals,

in naming a few,

vainly serving many masters

as meaning is a form of vanity

but not essentially available

for the direct presence of the now. . .