Mute by Charlie Smith It's gotten so I can't say what's in my heart
and substitute high-flown brooding
and complex notions concerning the rhythm behind certain actions.
I take walks a couple of times a day,
in early afternoon and later
just before dark and try to pay attention to selected vegetation
and chairs on porches, abandoned board games, and to the attitudes
about life expressed in the postures of husbands and wives
passing, to whatever
else is moving about, to dogs, to the cats this town is filled with.
I am unable to bring myself to speak to anyone,
or perhaps I speak abruptly to a clerk in a store where I buy a cup of coffee
and walk away afraid I have been harsh with him,
which is the greatest sin,
yet I would like to stop someone and say
I have been in love like you
or I think there is a divine expression coming through
all things, no matter how ridiculous they seem,
but I am unable to do this, I simply keep walking.
It may be just after noon when only old men sit outside
because they can't
stand being alone indoors another minute
or it may be dusk when the darkness is like wings being folded
in the gumbo-limbo trees
and whoever I pass is almost unrecognizable to me
as I am to them. I say nothing
and hinder no one. You can hear doves
repeating their stupid cries in the pines.
Art by Jen Corace
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