Poem by Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is this year's recipient of the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame.

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

from Interrogations at Noon
© 2001 Dana Gioia