The Pot and The Kettle

So it is National Poetry Month. Forsooth! At school, each member of the English Dept. has to read his/her favorite poem during a Morning Meeting. My turn was yesterday. It was very stressful, as earlier that day, I noticed that I put on the pair of khaki's with a visible hole in the back pocket, and not the holeless khakis, I had ironed the night before. Top that off with public speaking and a lack of coffee in the school building that day, I had given myself a severe headache before I had to read. It wasn't looking good.

But I read, and got a laugh with my little introduction, and when I finished someone even yelled out, "Ye-ah, Papa C!"

This is what I wanted to read, but clearly is would not have gone over well.

So I read this:

Silence

Since I lost you, I am silence-haunted;
Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street
Like pattering ripples go by,
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
With a loud, hoarse sigh:

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
Over the dead-black river,
Or last night's echoings
Make the daybreak shiver:

I feel the silence waiting
To sip them all up again,
In its last completeness drinking
Down the noise of men.

DH Lawrence