They Both Tried. Poem by Nibedita Deb

They both tried -
One tried to teach language
Another tried to teach silence.

She had to say -
How drops of words coalesced to form words
Millions of years from now
When grains of earth coalesced to form stones
Stones became mute stocks of earth's wealth
Dead.
Word-drops formed rivers in the labyrinth of human hearts
Islands of poems appeared in the horizon
Living.
Rivers of words rushing to meet the sea of expression.

He had to say -
How inner world of deepest emotions
Is at loss in the external, precarious world of language
Criss-crossing ripplets of rivers
Erred to speak what lay deeper in the womb of river-beds
As often language falls short of the enormity of silence
'Rivers of words rushing to meet the sea of expression'
To express an expressionless form
Only palpable through eternal communion.

They both tried -
One tried to teach language
Another tried to teach silence.

Whoever spun this web of Language and Silence?

Love smiled.