Mary Ruefle - Nettles

page 8:

If everyone were a storyteller, the infrastructure of the village would collapse. With more than one teller--with so many--contention and conflict would ensue. The one true storyteller--who can say which one?--would be compelled to retire to a cave and sit silent for ten years, eating nothing but nettles and drinking the tea that can be made from them. When he (she? they?) came out, the village would be going about its daily business, digging tubers, nursing babies, drying meat, all of which had already been put into a story by everyone else, so that no story would be left to tell, except the story of the one true storyteller, how he had lived in a cave for ten years, nettled by his own silence, and had at last emerged and found no one willing to listen.

from The Book by Mary Ruefle, published by Wave Books in 2023
link: https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/the-book