Letter to Silence

Dear silence, the deeper I fall into your
soundproofed well, the clearer I hear
these arias: beyond the window, a rapid
scrabbling of claws on bark; indoors,
a waterfall miming a moving drape.
The clicking of the laundry cycle, tinkle of
a brass bell in the shade of the dogwood tree.
Has the reaper come, has the harvest
started? Whether or not I am ready, the grain
explodes from its golden husk. And still I crave
the warmth more than the amber in the cup;
and still I am in love with the zest of oranges,
that opening of light crosshatched with blue above.
I’ve kept fingernails, eyelashes, hair; dried stumps
that fell shortly after birth from my daughters’ navels:
the smallest things that tether us tightly to this world.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.