A1 Poem by RIC BASTASA

we speak
they hear
and sometimes
what we speak which
they hear
is not actually us.

the wise man
does not listen much
knowing that what is
spoken is sometimes
not really us.

in anger, in utter
disappointment
in times of the storms
and fire and
quakes,
that spur of the moment
words are spoken
louder than the storm
which we do not
really mean. Not us.

it is the silence that
mends it all. What was
not spoken
remains to be the truth.

in fear and hunger.
in love and much of it.