Shall I Speak

Shall I speak
But will not I sound foolish
To reveal in me
The worst of failings 
Objects of mockery?


Shall I speak
But will not I to thine eyes
The poorer be
Wretch whom thou
Might just pity?


But speak I shall not
For it can ne’er be
I fool myself
With hopes unbecoming me.


So keep thy quiet
Wedded to silence be
For some things can’t
Be thine for eternity!

Weathering Storms

I stand, bitter, feeling fierce

Glaring at all that has struck me hard

Like cruel, thoughtless, rough hands

Not often was I wronged

It owes me nothing

This world, this life

They give me, just, my due

Those whom I look to

Ask not, dear child

For what you can claim not

Seek not, dear woman

For what were never promised you

Cry not “I long for!”

Even though the Tempest

With its Spirit might wreck

Even though you can not

Whim a death

Remember, my child,

That which stands tall

For smile nor wince

Can move it from

Where it never began

End where it can not

Bitter and fierce myself

I look at The Good

And lo and behold!

It beams at me!

I wave a shy wave

It winks back at me

I know what a silly

Little martyr I’ve been.

The Boat Keeper

A man was throwing himself into the sea near a remote beach. A boat keeper intervenes just in time and stops him. A sympathetic, wise man, the boat keeper talks the suicidal man into visiting a doctor for his condition, and the latter, having been depressed for long, catches on to the one ray of hope. The boat keeper offers to drive the man to the hospital himself. On their way, he confides to the patient that he had himself planned to do away with himself the very same day. The other man, disconcerted, asks the boat keeper to drop him right there; there really is no hope, he says, if the boat keeper, in spite of all his wisdom and treatment, still wished to die. Angry, he tells the boat keeper he should never have stopped him from jumping in the high waters. “Oh why did you not kill yourself before I came, and let me die in peace as well? What were you waiting for?” he yells. “Why my son”, says the boat keeper, I was waiting for you.”