Words are not Deeds – just
The Gaps in people’s Lacks²
It’s all an Idea – Talk – Talk –
Talk – Froth – high flown Idiocy³
I never Speak unless Addressed – and
Then, ‘tis Brief & Low: I cannot bear to
Live – Aloud – the racket Shames me so⁴
What does Heaven ever Say? Yet the four
Seasons are put into Motion by it – and the
Myriad Creatures receive their Life from it⁵
In the Multitude of Words there wanteth not
Sin – but they that Refraineth their lips are Wise⁶
People often hold such Great Thoughts in their
Deepest Hearts, but only Blunderingly Express
Them – and Faultily put them into Practice⁷
Our Speech is Tamed, and when we Speak,
It Communicates: we don’t Waste the Gift
Of Speech in Expressing our Neurosis⁸
What is Better than to Tell the Best?
It’s always to leave the Best Untold⁹
The Most Important things are not
Openly said: they’re Understated
And left to Seep through to one¹⁰
¹ Hermann Hesse tr. Joachim Neugroschel, Siddhartha
² William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
³ Agatha Christie, N or M?
⁴ Emily Dickinson, I Was the Slightest
⁵ Confucius tr. Edward Slingerland, Analects 17.19
⁶ Proverbs 10:19 (King James)
⁷ Langston Hughes, Freedom’s Plow
⁸ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
⁹ Walt Whitman, A Song of the Rolling Earth
¹⁰ Richard Wright, Black Boy