Whether we hear it or not, the vibration of sound springs from every moving thing, and everything is moving. Potentially these boundless sounds are all usable in the poetic structure. But we limit.

One limitation is that of our hearing. A composer cannot transcribe "the music of the spheres" if he or she has never heard it. And our language, too, is restricted; it contains only the sounds which we can hear or imagine.

A baby responds to its feelings and inner world by improvising in endless jabbering. As it grows, it learns that some of those sounds have specific meanings; later it discovers dictionaries from the established order.

But what about the unused sounds? We are free to use them. They are in a language not standardized, but improvised. If I describe the sound of my motorcycle shifting, I might say, "Rrr-rk-nrr..." It is sound. It is communication of a thought and image and feeling. It could be the line of a poem, to share my personal world.

If enough people decide that "Rrr-rk-nrr" is a good description of a motorcycle shifting, then the people who compile dictionaries will accept it as an official "word." This word is an example of onomatopoeia, which is the incorporation into language of a sound as it is heard -- for example, click, pop, buzz.

Most words are not onomatopoeic. "Elephant" sounds nothing like the large gray animal. Owls don't say "owl"; they say "who." But a chickadee or whipporwill sings the name that someone sensibly assigned it.

Onomatopoeia aids us with sound in the same way in which imagery assists us visually; it reinforces of the meaning in a non-word context. The sound itself has meaning.

The Sanskrit language supposedly is based on sound as it exists in inner worlds. Because all is vibrating, we each have our own vibrations -- our own music, our own word. "In the beginning was the Word." Perhaps at the beginning of each thing is a word of sound.

A language could be brought into this world by people who are able to perceive the inner vibrating existence of things, and express this vibration into the sound of words. For this reason, many Sanskrit words are used as mantras. Words like aum and shanti are chanted for this purpose of tuning a person into a reality beyond words, as it exists in those invisible realms of sound.

Whether we are using mantras or onomatopoeia or the common words of our language, perhaps they have a reality -- and an effect upon our reality -- beyond the words' mental meaning.