Silence

One part of the silence

of writing mornings for me

is the absence of hearing aids,

still in their box.

But thinking of silence as sound lost

or absent, fragments, distorts 

wholeness always at work.

The earth, there, each time we extend a foot,

just there, we know. But when it trembles,

we know it a different way.

And when it gathers its sounds closer

to center, our heartbeats signal…

and we hear more deeply too…

**

On this final August day  

before school kids meet Friday 

head-on, the young woman bends 

to retrieve her dog’s leavings,

and rain drops 

on the three of us.

The dog pulls my way, 

she a-way, diverts her gaze.

In the rain, dog and me, OK

**

Of the last clean page

in my journal you can’t see

but this small part

of its fulfillment.

**

Mirrored in the big window

across the room, my face,

over houses on the hill

below morning fog

below sky clearing to

not quite blue,

a part, one piece, to be sure,

even nicely framed,

just one fading sliver 

of a very moving 

picture…

**

Learn to fly…

the line in a song for the young

catches aging ears, ageless heart, 

ageless mind taking its wings

**

Savoring Wm Bronk’s poems,

scholarly, dense, that rigorously reveal

our incurable foolishness, and the light

we find ourselves in anyway.

**

If I really knew why

we found ourselves arguing,

probably I’d stay mad. But, 

really, I can’t quite catch 

its drifting away.

**

Whatever comes, what finds its way

is fruit of thought, of sense

and feel, ink for the pen the open page

takes in as love-taps.

**

A Monday morning hammer

works its way through

quiet streets, almost rain

and heavy dew,

through half-screened windows

above the wooden desk,

to gently carpeted floor

where bared feet rest.

**

—meeting at City Hall

The rush we feel when hearing

others speak lovingly

of what we love

cannot be spoken of lovingly 

enough for what it reveals

to us of who we are.

**

Of Wm Bronk, again, saying we listen for sound

and buried beneath noise find silence

finally heard. Silence, always there, not of time, 

needing nothing of time to be—if we 

but turn, it’s there, been there, doing—nothing 

for us to do:    silence   

**

First-light coffee,

strong black.

Looking out, 

over the cup-rim eyes, 

squint.

**

The last coffee-swallow

over last night’s dessert muffin 

asks a deeper breath

of appreciation…gladly given 

with a sigh.