It is a deeply personal poem, written about the tension between domesticity & the need to explore, but I think it can be interpreted more widely, about the tension between the need to possess the beloved while giving them freedom to grow; while giving them the privacy or private space in which to reach their own potential.
In these days when transparency is all, & power must be held, sometimes aggressively, to account, it reminds us of the importance of also sometimes giving those who serve the public the appropriate amount of space & privacy, to observe the proper boundaries in order to allow them to grow, rather than to shrivel, & to do their best, for us as for themselves.
I reproduce only the first & last verses. You can read the whole poem here & listen to a recording of it by Jill Balcon, the poet’s widow.
On not saying everything
This tree outside my window here,
Naked, umbrageous, fresh or sere,
Has neither chance nor will to be
Anything but a linden tree,
Even if its branches grew to span
The continent; for nature’s plan
Insists that infinite extension
Shall create no new dimension.
From the first snuggling of the seed
In earth, a branchy form’s decreed.
***
But when we cease to play explorers
And become settlers, clear before us
Lies the next need – to re-define
The boundary between yours and mine;
Else, one stays prisoner, one goes free.
Each to his own identity
Grown back, shall prove our love’s expression
Purer for this limitation.
Love’s essence, like a poem’s, shall spring
From the not saying everything.
C Day-Lewis
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