All defined, labeled, identified.
like quiet children who stand aside,
                                                    Silent as a dusty book,
Captivated by their own shoes,
must be pardoned, must be excused.
Those who mumble and avoid your eyes,
they do not mind, they’re just shy.

Imagine if everything still and reserved
Were undermined by such a word.
What would we say of those calm characters
mountains, towers, poetry, flowers?
If perchance one afternoon we met the horizon or the moon,
Are we to say that because often they stand away,
Afar in photos, landscapes, scenery,
off center, silent, beyond the sea,
That these defining features of the sky
Should be cast off and labeled shy?

Those amongst us, who silently
Live largely in their reverie,
Hiding behind their books and journals,
Heard not, but for the scratch of their pencils,
Will name you someday;
They'll have something undeniably brilliant to say.
Should you disagree, consider and think,
Violent, boisterous thunder is the voice of silent-seeming lightning.