What Have You Done?

Oh, the tone of that question!
Not how I mean it.
I was thinking of typos,

Being a compositor,
How we afford our words power,
But crush them so easily.

Only our best behavior,
Most alert, lets them through,
And I can’t decide

Whether our mistakes take lives
Of their own or prove
That we control them.

Mistakes may be oracles,
But can they speak for themselves?