from The Silence
A conversation is overhead on a train, on an airplane,
and even Love cannot know the whole.
It sits in the row behind,
listening quietly to what it is able.
Then the green and red wing-lights blink out;
the train rounds the track’s curve and is lost.
Love, also disappearing,
would like to tap the two murmuring ones on the shoulder.
Love would like to say to them,
“Speak more fearlessly—This is the only—Say what you can.”
Politeness forbids it.
Love sits in the row behind,
and quietly listens.
Love lowers its stricken face so no one will see.
Jane Hirshfield
