silence from which it came

one word
from a silence
as white as a dictionary page

the first word of a poem I might have written

or the next word
or the word
that was to follow

my squalling words,
my entire down-pouring words
ran into one another and my poem
became a spate of utterance
a flood
a diatribe
a drowning out,
a poem no longer

until the silt of it
precipitated
rant and vitriol
into thin strata
and layered itself to sleep

one word
in a silence
waiting

for meaning to give birth to a poem

as yet unwritten

© BH, 2024

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It was something by Wendell Berry, honest. In his more contemplative way, he touched on the place of silence in our ways of being in the world.

So here’s me, my contemplation topping and tailing the ‘howling ghost within’ (that’s David Gray, by the way).