- Where did my song come from?
- Who do I sing it to?
- Do I have the faith to sing?
A Song of Silence
It was long ago but that silence comes back like a
soft-whistled lullaby with clean air floating in after
and I could just give myself over to dreams – and see things
not just in the clouds but down along foggy roads
and in shadows of half-silent streams trickling in the woods
and across the overgrown field grasses that should have had horses
to chew them down all summer and now in motionless waves
they lean together in late fall – shoulder to shoulder like drunks
turned out of a tavern after their lost Sunday night football game
– still shouting over the umpteenth sack of their high-priced quarterback – and then shoulder to shoulder in the parking lot
they stare up at the cockeyed moon smiling sideways
– which is what a moon will do for drunks –
until they break apart to find their own pickups to drive home
– or maybe a couple of miles down the road one of them
drives through a fence and into an overgrown field
of static waves and now the moon has turned to bone
and stares down with a single blind eye
while the drunk at the wheel tries to puzzle out
who to call for help and in the silence starts to doze off
Or maybe the moon can’t quite believe this mass of scattered lights
like measles upon the dark world – tiny stars to mock the moon –
a scattered panoply springing out of the mushroom evening
– as if someone needs these many nightlights in every house
to keep all the alligators back beneath the beds
And some of us can’t get to sleep but lie here
listening to the distant thrum of road noise over against
coyotes yipping in high trills somewhere in the woods
and frogs serenading each other down in the swamp
their singing carried on the breeze
along with the faint trickling of a stream over stones
or an occasional hoot owl swooping in
the hush of these embellishing the road noise
allowing a small space for the soul to take a slow breath
in the wonderful unimportance of this one given moment
even with a constant road noise because
there’s always someone who has to go to work
or get a loaf of bread or a carton of milk for the kids …
– Eugene Marckx, November 11, 2022