5/18/42

Creation of the best order comes from the greatest need. Who never has sat on the edge of his bed weeping through the night, conscious of the tongueless voice within him, thirsting after the beautiful tone, the exquisite line of verse, the perfect stroke, the flavor in his mouth that would tell him perfection, does not know what I suffer now, and will never create. Let me be, says my own voice. Let this first painful child deliver itself. Then come, if you will, probe and test and kill me, but I shall never die then. In the air-pockets, in the mountain tops, in the clothes of all mankind, in the rock of the earth and the cement of the pavements, in the waters of the seas I shall be then! But I that am heavy laden now, leave me be. I shall fashion my own tongue out of the dross of the fire, I shall find it buried in the twisted ashes. It will be there for me, it will be like no one else’s. Then I shall speak not greatness, not life, not growth perhaps, not family nor brotherly love, but speak the need of others like me who have not found their tongues, or for whom perhaps there will never be a tongue but mine. The duty is great and the burden is heavy on me, but the work will be the deepest joy on earth. Not life shall I create, not life, but truth above all, as no one has seen it before.