I'm reading Sense and Sensibility aloud
to my young daughter. Through the day the words
I say to friend or sales clerk sound endowed
with rhythms, tone, an elegance I've heard
from my own mouth—as if Jane Austen's hand
recorded pure vibrations from her mind
that I see, speak, hear, feel, and understand
so deeply I'm imprinted and refined.
It works the other way when what we write
is aimed at getting what we would possess,
at trying to impress, seduce, or fight,
words shaking with crass self-concern or stress.
They start as quivering within one heart
but spread to quakes that tear the earth apart.