Perceptions of silence
Here are patterns, like a dance.
We walk and chat
among the trees and brambles.
I make space
with tentative questions -
an offer to listen.
You respond, then step aside
on to safer ground.
You make space with silence
and listen to my chatter -
seldom of any consequence,
not knowing
how to interpret the quiet.
There are questions like rain
falling in the silence,
turned aside by circumstance
or choice:
"How brief was 'numb'
or wide is 'empty'?
How bottomless is 'dreadful'?
Is time of any use at all?"
Here is silence, like a door
to close against the rain.
It stands ajar - itself a question
listening to the rain
dance among the trees.