The Secrets Poets Keep

Where silence meets courage

Jeanne d’Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage

“Your silence will not protect you.” ~ Audre Lorde

Dear Reader,

Last week Kristi’s beautiful poem Reliquary stirred something deep in me – a reflection on the secrets I keep. How my poems, dreams and stories have become reliquaries, often holding what I dare not speak aloud. The resonance lingered, and from it, this short story emerged, slipping seamlessly into the mosaic memoir I’m currently writing.

A collection of fractured memories. Moments that have shaped me. Each one a sacred vessel, carrying something precious – something deeply felt, waiting to be uncovered – by the reader and myself.

The Secrets Poets Keep

Beneath the watchful gaze of circling gulls and the restless lull of tides, the poet lived in a weathered cottage at the edge of the world. Each morning, the sea murmured buried stories within the waves. She understood its language well – for like the sea, she too held secrets, caught in the depths of her silence.

All poets do.

Their words are born from whispers they dare not speak aloud, shaped by longing and memories kept safe in ink. Yet a poet’s gift is not only to create but to find the courage to let those truths rise – to guard what is not yet ready to be seen and release what must meet the light.

For years, she believed silence was safety – a shield against judgment, against the weight of truth. But courage she discovered lies not in holding back but in daring to confront the secrets hidden within.

Her notebooks, ink-smudged and curling at the corners, held confessions too powerful to voice, desires too delicate to share. Poetry had always been a vessel for what she could not say – love unspoken, grief unnamed, longing unanswered. Some secrets, she knew, were burdens. Others, treasures. Her poetry held both.

Her grandmother once told her that the sea listens. “It keeps our secrets,” she murmured like the tide, tracing gentle fingers over the poet’s hand. “It hears our dreams, our regrets. It carries them far away.”

Perhaps that belief had led her to this old fishing town, trusting the sea to keep her secrets.

But secrets shift, restless as tides. They rise when least expected – unravelling in ink, whispered lines, verses that demand to be seen.

One evening, beneath a sky bruised by the setting sun, the poet stood at the water’s edge, a notebook trembling in her hands. The wind pressed against her, lifting loose strands of hair, urging her forward.

The tide rolled in, hushed but insistent, its cold breath wrapping around her ankles. It seemed to weigh her words, as though asking if they were ready to rise - or if they, too, would sink beneath its depths.

She turned to pages she had never dared to speak aloud – words bound in solitude, shaped by the quiet ache of remembrance.

A memory – a hidden truth she had long buried – surfaced with the tide, softened by salt and time, beckoning to be remembered. With it came a presence, unseen but felt. It pressed lightly against her shoulders, an echo of all she carried and all that waited to rise.

In this moment, she understood: silence had never been a shield – only a quiet prison.

Slowly, she tore the pages free and let them slip from her fingers. One by one, they drifted into the sea, curling like autumn leaves before sinking beneath the waves.

Some secrets keep us safe. Others isolate us. But over time, truth finds its way to the surface.

This secret had shielded her – from judgment, from shame, from pointed fingers.

She never expected this one to return.

But days later, when the tide was low, she spotted a single page from the promenade, lying on the shore like a message left by the sea itself. She ran over the shingle and sand, heart pounding. The ink had blurred, surrendered to the sea’s touch, yet her words remained.

And beneath her own handwriting, another had written:

“I remember.”

She had thought she had let it go. But the memory rose, undeniable. And in that moment, she whispered to herself the words she had long buried:

“I remember.”

Poets hold secrets – woven into verses, carried by time and tide. But as she gazed at the words, something shifted within her.

Poetry was more than a reliquary for hidden longing; it was a conversation between past and present, between self and world, between secrecy and revelation.

Now, standing at the shore, she understood.

Silence had never protected her. It had only held her back from the courage waiting within.

The stories poets tell mirror their journeys. The truths they feared had never left – they had simply been waiting, patiently, to resurface and be remembered.

And perhaps at last, to be told.

Yours in words, Deborah

If my words strike a chord and you feel inspired to dive deeper into my poetry or explore my essays on Jungian thought, I invite you to visit: The Liberated Sheep