The word in poetry, as an end-in-itself (we read it for its own sake), is in that sense like a person, or like the cosmos considered as a creation or work of art.

It has been popular for quite a while to emphasize the transitive nature of art, how its value lies in the fact that it leads to something else, that it represents possibility rather than telos (end, purpose).

But a major quality of aesthetic experience is stillness, intransitive repose. The thing at rest in equilibrium - or better, active in equilibrium.

The poetic word inhabits a borderland, a dawn/dusk liminal area, between the visible & the invisible, known/unknown, things/values, being/intellect, time/eternity. Out of this well emerges mysterious water.