New Poems
"ONLY 9% OF WHAT WE SAY IS
UNDERSTOOD EXACTLY THE WAY WE MEAN IT"
I am talking
and you are listening
or perhaps you aren’t listening
but you’ve put on a brave face
and I won’t ask you to respond
because most of what I’m saying
is going in and out your ears
like a fast train on a slick track
and the voices of little children passing
break in here, talking to the air,
to the legs of chairs, talking
whether we listen or not;
they are communicating with a world at knee level,
telling themselves through their day
that these things are important,
their treble voices fade as they follow their mother
like newly hatched ducklings, their indistinguishable voices
slipping into my thoughts
like wings of light, what they are saying
less important than the inquisitive sounds they make –
their wisdoms absorbed instead
by the rug, by the covers of books,
the whiffs of air that speed them on their way.
And I am talking, and you are listening,
maybe even hearing, but what version
is mine, what translation will be yours.
Poem by CB Follett