When is it really quiet?
Underwater bubbles pop and sounds muffle.
When drowning screams are choked
by the deluge into mouth and larynx.
Then there’s the sinking, the floating, the bloating.
A Quakers’ meeting is quiet enough
except for sniffs, breathing, the odd shuffle
and the builders outside shouting
and cursing about late cement.
Then there’s catching up, and clicking back.
Laying in clover and ox-eyes on a field is quiet
but the wind wiffles leaves, whilst high up
a buzzard screeches her woes.
Does her mate listen?
Then there’s the underground-scratching of moles.
I meditate to find the quiet, swim to find stillness.
I turn off radios, T.V., iphone, my mind.
Yet cables buzz, aircraft streak across quiet skies
plants and trees creak and sing as they grow.
I seek the grail as I dance echoes of pain and joy
I read my poems aloud, and then comes the silence.
Underwater bubbles pop and sounds muffle.
When drowning screams are choked
by the deluge into mouth and larynx.
Then there’s the sinking, the floating, the bloating.
except for sniffs, breathing, the odd shuffle
and the builders outside shouting
and cursing about late cement.
Then there’s catching up, and clicking back.
Laying in clover and ox-eyes on a field is quiet
but the wind wiffles leaves, whilst high up
a buzzard screeches her woes.
Does her mate listen?
Then there’s the underground-scratching of moles.
I meditate to find the quiet, swim to find stillness.
I turn off radios, T.V., iphone, my mind.
Yet cables buzz, aircraft streak across quiet skies
plants and trees creak and sing as they grow.
I seek the grail as I dance echoes of pain and joy
I read my poems aloud, and then comes the silence.
Sue Foster