On Anger

Is anger really worse than the cold drip
of constant criticism from a calm
voice seemingly with patience filled? Words trip
away to thin air, all of them. Is harm
that is a greater harm, caused when, they're sent
upon their way with blasts of heat, or when
they're baseless, cold, and carping and incessant?
Does gentle rain in its relentlessness then
not erode in time the hardest stone?
Does ice not gouge out valleys where it crushes,
its temperature not bring pain into the bone
of those exposed to it?  Fire where it rushes,
though it scorches as it passes, soon blows out:
better then, than carping, is to shout.