December 31, 2007 – New Year’s Eve. Cloudy, cold, another storm coming in the a.m. Camera is ready. Friends coming to dinner. Nice to be surrounded by good people who love you and worry about you. Had my second acupuncture today, and am very pleasantly surprised. Feeling is light, clear, calm. Good. I felt nasty stuff moving out of me, and Kathy says my Ch’i has been rearranged.
Aprons of Silence
Many things I have said today.
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked.
To come and say the same things
Everybody was saying, no end
To the yes-yes, yes-yes
me-too, me-too
The aprons of silence covered me.
A wire and hatch held my tongue.
I spit nails into an abyss and listened
I shut off the gabble of Jones, Johnson, Smith,
All whose names take pages in the city directory.
I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around.
I locked myself in and nobody knew it.
Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow
Knew it – on the streets, in the post office,
On the cars, into the railroad station
Where the caller was calling, “All-aboard,
All a-board for …Blaa-blaa…Blaa…Blaa-blaa,
Blaa-baaa…and all points northwest…all-a-board.”
Here I took along my own hoosegow
And did business with my own thoughts.
Do you see? It must be the aprons of silence.
– Carl Sandburg
