Better to Be Silent


I know nothing of poetry

My only effort is to write

The lines that drift down into me

From a source that seems to say,

'Pick up the pen now, quietly.'

And for a little while I wait

For the words to congregate

Into a harmony of form.

The rhythm comes, sometimes the rhyme.

I try not to think too much

For mind likes to interfere

Believing always it knows best.

Better to be silent as a pond

Receptive to the skidding stone

Whose momentary splash and skip

Is nothing more than surface noise

And troubles not the deep below.