Do Not 'Speak', Unless You Can Improve Upon the Silence?

"Do not speak, unless you can improve upon the silence."

~Quote from the Movie, "Everafter"

"Moonlight Reflections"

@Copyrighted Photograph, 2011.  All Rights Reserved:  Isabelle Black Smith.

"Be the waves that shape the world around you toward a greater end." 
~Isabelle Black Smith

I posted this quote the other day along with a photographic scene of exquisitely large pieces of driftwood in my post titled "Synchronicity." I am wondering now, based on a series of events that unfolded during the course of my day:  If you make no waves ... always 'play' within the safety of the 'lines' ... then how can you possibly shape the world around you?  Hmmmm ... perhaps not all are meant to shape the world toward a greater end?

Another thought, drifting in and out of my consciousness, was a seed planted from a line in a movie that I watched the other day:  "Do not speak, unless you can improve upon the silence"  [The title of this piece].  Well, from here my thoughts wonder toward another saying from conventional wisdom (despite my best efforts to steer them otherwise):  "Actions speak louder than words."  ... So then, what about 'inaction'?  Does it speak ... or speak as loudly as 'action'?  Based on my observations in watching people move through daily life, I would argue that inaction speaks perhaps the loudest.  That's my position for the moment ... we shall see if it holds.  I think there is some more pondering to do upon this subject.

And such are the motions, the late night ramblings of a tired mind ... Do you see now why I cannot sleep  (my  haunting nightmares aside)?  So many questions to be explored and yet answered ...

"Procession of Souls", By Louis Welden Hawkins

(Image Courtesy of ArtMagick.com)

 Here follows a poem that I wrote, as my thoughts unraveled, while pondering the above notions this night  ....

"Do Not 'Speak', Unless You Can Improve Upon the Silence?"

Silent mist, veil of shaded fog ...

Down sullen path do they hither trod.

The lost souls, wander on pointless journey.

A weary, disheveled band, they wander

As they once did:  cyclical marching,

Innermost feeling and emotions

Safely hid, tucked deeply down inside.

Parade of Lost souls marches samely,

In ordered fashion through motions

Of a recounted ordinary life.

Lost souls afraid to speak.

Lost souls forgotten how to seek?

Lost souls mild and meek ...

Lost souls afraid to be heard,

Ever fearful of the spoken word,

Lest deemed they to be absurd.

Lost souls afraid to be seen?

Lost souls afraid to truly live.

Do they pray a second chance

To them give?

Bounded by feared perceptions.

Afraid to breech set boundaries

Of an accepted worldly life,

Lest to be named

Inflictors of 'needless strife.'

To them the ordered march

Would thus suffice.

... But, ah to wonder,

Inflicting chaos upon the order,

To color and boldly outside the lines ...

Such a subtlety of knowing, sublime;

Alas to Lost Souls lies,

For the moment hidden:

Until, perhaps in due time

It be bidden.    

@Copyright Poem, 2011.  All Rights Reserved:  Isabelle Black Smith.

And in closing, I am reminded of a very wise saying ... "In order to understand the living:  you got to know the dead."