Redtree Times

Archaeology: Déjà Vu— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell

— The Things We Dare Not Tell, Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

A video for this poem popped up in my YouTube feed for some algorithmic reason I can’t comprehend. I am glad it did.

I first encountered the Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) a few years back when I stumbled across a poem of his, The Wander-Light, that I shared here. It has been a pretty popular post, receiving a number of views on a daily basis. Doing some research back then, I found that Lawson is an Australian icon, considered to be perhaps the country’s greatest poet and short story writer.  He was a brilliant writer and storyteller but struggled with alcoholism and mental illness for much of his life until dying at the relatively young age of 55 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Watching the reading of the poem below, I began to think about the secrets we all carry. Oh, we may claim or attempt to be transparent, but we all maintain words and deeds and beliefs that we share with no one. Some we don’t share because, to be honest, they are things nobody would care to hear. Some are too shameful or painful or embarrassing to release from our grip.

I probably share too much here and in my talks. More than most. Mainly because I believe that transparency has a liberating effect. But even so, there are things that will no doubt go unshared to my grave. Well, that is, if I ever decide to die. If I don’t, I might break my silence in a couple of hundred years or so.

It makes me wonder what secret things others will carry to their graves, the good and the bad. Will they ever reveal themselves to some future archaeologist or researcher? Are they hidden somewhere, like one of the artifacts in the Archaeology piece at the top, waiting to be unearthed then put together like a strange and wonderful jigsaw puzzle? Small bits that together tell a bigger story?

The other thing that comes to mind is the one line in Lawson’s poem that resonated most with me:

Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!

I believe it but wonder if that is true. Do secrets keep us apart? Would revelation of all things hidden somehow bring us together?

I don’t know the answer. My lack of answers is no secret, that’s for sure.

Maybe we need those secret things just to maintain that feeling of mystery that comes with not knowing everything about everyone. 

Might that mystery be the thing that drives all types of creativity?

Could be. I don’t really know.

Okay, got to run. I have secrets waiting to be buried as well as some to be shared. It’s the sorting out that counts.

Here’s the poem from Henry Lawson along with the whole poem below it.

The Things We Dare Not Tell

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago;
There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

— Henry Lawson