What's the difference between
the silence
of the tiger
lily and
the tiger sleeping—
between the pale lotus
flower and the still-paler
moon smeared loosely on the
surrounding water?
Even closer
to home, I hear so many
of these absences
which seem to work together—
the quiet of morning
coffee in my cup
and of the downstairs
neighbors who
moved out last month;
the peace of the municipal vehicle
at the end of the cul-de-sac
not backing up
and the similar tranquility
of the steeple bell around the corner
during all the minutes
that mercifully exist
in between those horribly
ironclad hours.
In fact, there must be hundreds
of thousands of different
kinds of silence,
each with its own
loud dark way of knowing
something connected
to something else.
And I can't help but wonder—
which pair is the most like us?
I don't mean the species—I mean you
and me: two points,
two dots
at the top of
two necks, always connected,
always yolked as efficiently as possible
on the geodesic
surface of this planet, but never
really talking.
