! ! Verbs V. Nouns

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.