Cela va sans dire

It is the implicit that goes without saying because it is hard to articulate, but the implicit drives the life.

C.G.Jung, Psychological Perspectives

At St Agnes Seminary for Girls
Sr. Mary Rose taught us idioms
in French class. She emphasized
“Cela va sans dire.”
“Remember it,” she said.
“It goes without saying.”
I wondered what it might be.

She didn’t add, and she might have,
“It’s for you to decide whether
it is said or not. Always up to you.
Here, there, and everywhere.
It will never go without saying,
unless it isn’t said. If need be, say it.
As for the unsaid? Hard to say.”

If she’d said that, we’d have had
a clue, maybe caught on to what
it was, had we the minds for it.
But she didn’t, and we hadn’t.
Girls were not then involved in it.
Out of it, we were puzzled about
what went without saying.