Another Damned Blog

We had friends visiting from Friday morning until two hours ago, and three extra people in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment does wear one out, especially when one of those three has a bad cough and another needs to get up at four in the morning to leave for a marathon. It was awesome, though—they were excellent guests (they brought wine! they bought us lunch!) and indisputably superior people. In celebration of their visit (and, much as we love them, their perfectly timed departure):

Silence
Marianne Moore

My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.

(Congratulations again to J-Will, for finishing in the top 10 percent of runners!)