The Silence - Wendell Berry

 Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud

with the labor of words.
Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it

mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves

stir and fall with a sound

that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my help is, my aim.

A song whose line

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence

like a root. Let me say
and not mourn: the world

lives in the death of speech
and sings there.