Silence

Akhmatova’s silence
Burning her words
Tsvetayeva’s silent rope
The silence of poets
And those not poets
Wherever black crepe is hung

The silence of being
Heavy beyond hearing
The silence of mirrors
And walls without doors
The silence within silence
That hurries past knowing

Celan silent in the Seine
Lorca’s silent blood
Vallejo’s silence sobbing
Trakl’s silent flow
Beethoven’s silent moat
The silence drowning words

And the hypocrite silence
Of the bourgeois
Who genuflects in silence
To idols of silent dust
A silence so amazing
Even silent when he speaks

The coward’s riskless silence
Silent as held breath
The silence of backs turning
Complicity’s silence burning
And the silence of the traitors
Who slew the silent dead

And the huddled silent boxes
In suburbs soft as bread
As silent as the ashes
That fill the silent air
And silent acquiescence
As silent as forgetting

10/30/96, 2/9-2/14/97, 2/8/98, 5/27/98

Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.