"... The tongue, the organ of taste, ...."

“... The tongue, the organ of taste, is also the organ of speech.  Many of the words we use are of the fast-food spiritual variety.  These words are too thin to echo experience; they are too weak to bring the inner mystery of things to real expression.  In our rapid and externalized world, language has become ghostlike, abbreviated to code and label.  Words that would mirror the soul carry the loam of substance and the shadow of the divine ...

Poetry is the place where language in its silence is most beautifully articulated.  Poetry is the language of silence.

If you look at a page of prose, it is crowded with words.  If you look at a page of poetry, the slim word shapes are crouched in the empty whiteness of the page.  The page is a place of silence where the contour of the word is edged and the expression is heightened in an intimate way.  It is interesting to look at your language and the words that you tend to use to see if you can hear a stillness or a silence.  One way to invigorate and renew your language is to expose your self to poetry.  In poetry your language will find cleansing illumination and sensuous renewal.”