Nothing To Say
Now I understand better the utility of silence. Nowadays the availability of social media has created a troposphere of unrelieved cacophony, a din of trivia, opining, and pontificating. There is even a class of paid hacks, contracted to generate opinions favorable to their paymaster. My life 1s enriched when I endeavor to just shut up and listen, listen carefully. Why step up to engage the other person? Is his only purpose to merely engage me? Does he have anything to say? Do I? What if if each of us is represented to the other only by lines of text on a glowing screen? With effort sometimes I manage to patiently wait, allowing the other to complete their selection of words and manner of expression. Then I may glimpse the backstory,– a clue to what the speaker has experienced, suffered, giving shape to her point of view.
Yesterday I read this poem by C. H. Sisson.
The Best Thing to Say
The best thing to say is nothing
And that I do not say,
But I will say it, when I lie
In silence all the day.
C. H. Sisson Collected Poems, Carcanet Press, 1998
