American Life in Poetry

Elsewhere in this newspaper you may find some advice for maintaining and repairing troubled relationships. Here, in a poem by Linda Pastan of Maryland, is one of those relationships in need of some help.

The Quarrel

If there were a monument

to silence, it would not be

the tree whose leaves

murmur continuously

among themselves;

nor would it be the pond

whose seeming stillness

is shattered

by the quicksilver

surfacing of fish.

If there were a monument

to silence, it would be you

standing so upright, so unforgiving,

your mute back deflecting

every word I say.