Why You Need to Have One Is Not Much More Mysterious than Why You Don't Say What You Think at the Birth of an Ugly Baby

That was an excellent thunderstorm last summer, me trapped in my car parked in front of my house. I'm busy, I'm blogbeat, there's lots of content the past few posts you might not have read yet, and, this is minor, I miss the aarghlessness more than I thought I possibly ever could. I'm recycling at least for today, plus grandmother makes another circuit of the too symmetrical gardens. Below, one of my favorite days, a favorite poem, below poem the best cat ever once, still.






A SECRET LIFE

Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.





UPDATE!