The Poet’s Fourth Lesson

The old poet leaned back on the worn leather couch,
his wrinkled feet bare on the coffee table,
the remnants of his bourbon light amber in his glass.

“Words matter.” he says softly,
his eyes in another place and time.

“and it is hard to know which matter more,
the ones we use,
or the ones we do not.”

About this poem

Words, with all their power to build or tear down, heal or kill, are often just as powerful when unsaid, than said. The struggle, in life as well as poetry, is knowing when to use which.

The picture was taken in Wells, Vermont.

Tom