Words and Silence

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a few excerpts from...

Poet's Choice: A Farewell: By Rita Dove

Sunday, January 6, 2002; Page BW12

Poems to me are not just objects of art, exquisitely wrought cages for

the living tissue of a captured moment; nor are they mere puzzles to

be unraveled or sources of passive entertainment. I have always

thought of poems as my companions -- and like companions, they

accompany you wherever the journey (or the afternoon) might lead:

They will listen as well as expound; they can influence the mood of

the encounter and they can even change their minds; they comfort us

and argue back when they don't agree. A poem grows on me and, if I'm

receptive and it's a good poem, grows with me.

.....

To quote Mary Oliver again:

Would it be better to sit in silence?To think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing?

This is the way of the orange gourd.This is the habit of the rock in

the river, over whichthe water pours all night and all day.

But the nature of man is not the nature of silence.Words are the

thunders of the mind.Words are the refinement of the flesh.Words are

the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments -- we just manage it

-- sweet and electric, words flow from the brainand out the gate of

the mouth.

We make books of them, out of hesitations and grammar.We are slow, and choosy.This is the world.

~~~~

....though, if one believes William Stafford, true communion is all the

stronger for being invisible and silent:

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask memistakes I have made. Ask me

whetherwhat I have done is my life. Othershave come in their slow way

intomy thought, and some have tried to helpor to hurt: ask me what

differencetheir strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.You and I can turn and lookat the silent

river and wait. We knowthe current is there, hidden; and thereare

comings and goings from miles awaythat hold the stillness exactly

before us.What the river says, that is what I say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59683-2002Jan3.html