ELOQUENCE

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Eloquence, versed in feats of silence,

Loiter where the brown river meets the sea:

Shall we watch the large sunset sink again,

Or note the reversals on the sound –

The dolphin afloat, the ship aground?

Deciding to remain standing here alone,

Resolve to understand lessons hard to learn.

Cherish a plan which shuns all action –

Shelve the belief which keeps one hoping.

Lilies in the field better Solomon.

Dreamers by the shore honour loneliness:

Avoiding the crowds, obeying form –

Evading the match becomes our game;

Unwilling to confront others twice as loud,

Preferring to invent salmon unbeheld.

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Hullaballoo abets the antics

Tried by the school of crass semantics –

Quiet fills the ear full of poetry.

Anything that’s said seems a travesty –

Dislodging the books, a Babel falls –

Disturbing the hush, an avalanche.

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How often must our speech mean its opposite

To teach us there are things better left unsaid?

Those who proclaim their current vision,

Let them be burnt for their religion.

Spoken pleas enforce love’s intransigence;

Uttered threats alarm sleeping potentates.

Describing a kiss with arm round waist

Discloses a knack which stains good taste;

A terse rejoinder stuns further intercourse,

And silence proves a force to be reckoned with.

Stillness itself stamps out explosions.

Blood, when it flows from grave abrasions,

Mingles with the earth minus commentary.

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Stand aside from small talk in solitude –

Some politic muse may mill its grist

From urgent amendments; may detest

The public cost of lamps lighting corridors,

The private gain on Mark Rothko’s canvases.

Caryatids support the temple—

Do they discuss their load of marble?

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From Orpheus and Hermes – a long poem written over thirty years ago – never published.