I love my early morning walks. There’s something about being out alone under the moon before the sun exposes everything, something about not being required to talk, something unbroken that prepares me for the long string of interruptions that will comprise the day.
Here’s Billy Collins’s “Silence”:
There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
You can read the rest here. Cloudscome at a wrung sponge is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup today.
Always love Billy Collins. Does he ever miss?
I haven’t caught him if he has!
Simply gorgeous. *Swoon*
Definitely swoonworthy!
I’ve never caught him missing either—not even stumbling. I like how he celebrates the imperfect silence of a poem at the end.
Yes… There’s that underlying wry awareness that he’s saying an awful lot of words about silence! Must be they’re worth saying.
Love Billy Collins and I, too, love my predawn walks.
We’re an elite society, we dawn treaders. ;-)
That is such a sad poem. The belt not striking! and the person turning away… heartbreaking silences contrasted with beauty.
Last night I went out to water the garden to get away from crying children who refused to go to sleep nicely. The silence of the moon above me and the thirsty flowers around me brought me back to my senses.
You’re right… Some of the silences represent failures, or brief respite from suffering, don’t they? I hadn’t thought of the poem as sad overall, but maybe so. And the breaking of the silence with a poem is a healing act.