The rain is old,

Smelling of the coughs and shudders,
Trembling fingers
And grim smiles
Underneath the stones.
The stars
Have just arrived.
We found them somewhere
No one
Is willing to admit.
The world
Has yet another noise
Added to the chaos.
The wild cacophony
That means they are not listening.

The scratching of my pen
Against the page
Is loud in the eyes
Of the crickets and the moths.
If I scream,
They will not hear.
The old heavy fingertips of this faded grass
Are bent and torn,
So that they bleed
Out the stories
That drip to the
wet
sticky
earth.

The light
Comes from somewhere faraway.
Somewhere
Where no sound can penetrate.
I rest my head
Upon my hands
And sigh
In wonder at the mere idea
Of a place where people sit about
And listen to each other’s
Wrinkled, cracked, laughing eyes.

Here,
In this place,
The louder the splash,
The more they swim around it.
Accepting the ripples
As yet another effect
Of some large, arrogant boulder.
I get up
And sink my bare feet
Into the warm earth
And raise my hands
To those strange forgotten moons,
And that single star.
Hear me,
I am waiting.
Hear me,
Hear me,
I call.
The voice is lost
In the coming floods
And my tears join the dusty years
Of memories
That were never heard.
Hear me,
I whisper.

And
It
All
Stops.

Quiet has not been seen before.
A stranger down this country road.
The trees bow before me
And my words.
They respect someone
Who can do by quiet
See by quiet,
Think by quiet.
The world listens.

Maybe,
I think,
Maybe we need
To start whispering.
Because it’s
Only then
That we can hear.