The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan;
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.
If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her,
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?~emily dickinson
Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be.
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
I love the idea of a volcano with pink projects. I wonder, though–is Dickinson right? Is it really not in human nature to keep secrets? My first reaction is yes, absolutely. We can’t keep secrets.
But then I think of all the secrets that we do keep. Yes, we often blab when we shouldn’t–but then, too often we remain silent when the truth would be a saving grace.
Maybe it’s not that we can’t keep secrets, but that we’re not good at knowing which ones to tell and which to keep…
The Emily Project 