Silence

It is not out of tiredness
That I have ceased from speech
It is not the weather
Nor is it the world
What forces me to lay on the water
Without musing a word
In a little death

It is not the solitude
That brings me to the meadows
What provokes this silence
It is not the strength of northern winds
What loses the direction home
Along the trodden paths of the forest

It is not hunger
That bruises lips and fingertips
What keeps me from the certitude
Of a poet

It is not the rain
That destroys the crops in the fields
What loots delight from little pleasures

It is not something tragic
That learned men understand not
What is at the root of this evil


It is yet something so simple

That a stranger in the street
Did not wave back
At the right time

That a friend did not stay
For a minute in the sun
That my feet are cold
That a friend does not write
That he remains entrusted
To higher wisdoms
Than the rapture in the pasture

It is a reason strong enough
Not to write
In the expectation
To be written to
At a later date