Language here still clings
to its local shading
and is not yet totally corrupted
by the bland usage of mass media.
We also treasure our world-champion
slow talkers,
people who speak as if God has given them
only so many words to use in a lifetime,
and having said them
they will die.
- Kathleen Norris, Dakota
Where words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise.
- Jewish Proverb
Clumsy tongue and untrained words
trip and stumble out the
farmer’s 80-year-old
toothless mouth.
Slurry spoken landmarks and
three sentence stories remembered
by a stoke-stricken 90-year-old.
Circling recounts
of painful family events
absent beginning, end, or any real point.
Told by uncomfortably exposed
and crimson-faced father.
Whose thick, stained fingers
speak of a trust that he does not
lend to his tongue.
These are not country fools
or the small town ignorant.
These are the slow-talkers.
These are the wise.