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Daniel Weissbort

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from “Letters to Ted”

Silence, Worse

 

You inserted yourself into this life or that, mine for instance,
with care, paying attention to the surroundings,
trying not to disturb them, not to break anything.

You made a place for yourself and we accommodated you,
because you fended off your own magnitude with words –
and who wasn’t won over by those words!

Now you’ve abandoned the place, though an effigy or after-
               image remains.
We try to engage it in conversation, though this smacks of
               idolatry.
Or we share memories of you and sometimes rather guiltily
               indulge in a little speculation.

It’s not so much that we are trying to keep you alive,
as that we want to find out how death enters the picture.
We have to efface ourselves along with you. It hurts!

And as well as a sense of loss,
there’s a sense of futility about this –
only that, for the time being, silence seems still worse.

That silence seems worse is the poet’s besetting sin.
What he speaks of, as often as not, is simply unsayable.
What he manages to say is all lies, or he couldn’t say it.

 

Page(s) 79

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