“Glassy Sea” by W.S. Merwin

As you see each of the stars has a voice
and at least one long syllable before
words as we know them and can recall them
later one by one with their company
around them after the sound of them has
gone from its moment even though we may
say it again and again it is gone
again far into our knowledge there are
words as we know for whatever does not
die with us but the sound of those words lasts
no longer than the others it is heard
only for part of the length of a breath
among those clear syllables never heard
from which the words were made in another
time and the syllables themselves are not
there forever some may go all the way
to the beginning but not beyond it