DISCRETION
by Catherine Breese Davis
What I discern shall be my own.
Let him who cannot be alone
Be comforted, for he shall heed
Only what answers to his need.
My thoughts, I find, discomfit me;
But they are still good company,
And I could now almost forego
All company to keep them so.
But caution says, Be more discreet;
Good judgment whispers, Self-conceit;
Then I, not affably, admit
Discretion will have none of it.
Not affable; but if he finds
No heady meeting of the minds,
He still requires much give-and-take.
I do it for discretion’s sake.
This poem is from Catherine Breese Davis: On the Life & Work of a Lost American Master, edited by Martha Collins, Kevin Prufer, and Martin Rock, with the Unsung Masters Series, Pleaides Press, 2015.
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