If I Could Only Be Silent

And stop this writing and this trying If I could only give up at last If I could only resign myself to doing nothing And to accepting that I will never realize my dream If I could only be silent And modest and quiet And content to say nothing Forever If I could only be a good modest quiet humble human being One of billions born to this earth Who understands completely his own ultimate namelessness If I could only be silent and forget all those I cared for And needed so much to write about If I could only be silent and do my praying to God Without writing about it If I could only be silent And no longer bother anyone even a single reader With my pretentions If I could only be silent As one day not long I certainly will be If I could only be silent As I probably will not be for So long as I can However foolishly and self- defeatingly ‘Try'