You ask the cruel silence why
More people don’t read poetry.
The answer is missed because it’s too plain:
Look at these faces boarding the train,
Tired faces, no longer innocent, yearning, or young.
To slip and trip on a beautiful tongue
Is neither their design nor desire.
Their soul sleeps by an obscure fire.
They wear death; they lack beauty’s youth;
A poem’s beautiful truth
Is meant for a beautiful face,
Beautiful, despite age, and disgrace
Visited upon sentimental eyes
Which sees beauty killed, and where it lies.
Not pretty, they find poetry
Insults the face which neither sings nor sighs.
The torturous mountain and tumbling streams
Soak the valley, where trees hang like dreams.
Grey mist falls fast; dense green covers the lower road
As you descend, as lights into shadows lightly go.
If your weakness makes you slow,
Nature becomes a picture.
As much as you love how nature aspires,
You cannot live in her airs and fires.
You rage against the sky, but it backs off.
You haven’t enjoyed poetry—since that cough.
