Today’s poem is “Least Said” by Richard Miles. He lives in Washington County and works as a stonemason. Richard co-founded, with Peter Sears, the Aspen Writers' Conference in 1974, and he taught English at The University of Arizona and Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico. He’s the author of “Boat of Two Shores” and a letterpress chapbook “Child & Other Poems.”
He writes, “'Least Said' evolved from a cycle of sonnets wherein the last line of number one was the first line of number two and so on until the 15th sonnet, which consisted of the fourteen first lines of the preceding sonnets—a requiem. The effect was too noisy when I was trying to speak of silence. ‘Least Said’ is the result.”
Least Said
by Richard Miles
It is good to share the background melody with you
to see it shining in your face sometimes
your face
feeding its golden flame
our silence
its sounding board
a kind of applause or approval
in the surf and trees
as the planet turns
scaling butterflies
weaving its great tapestry
was it applause more is
always turning into itself
vast shuttling loom of twined threads
how did we trace our way to here now
as sunrise creates a golden deer
down in the field above the bay
fills greens and umbers with themselves
lifting the melody into range
Poem copyright ©2018 Richard Miles.