Sunday, February 6, 2011

Every Good-bye

I was only going to do one post on Maureen Doallas' collection of poetry, Neruda's Memoirs, but she called me back with her opening to Section III Exit:
Every good-bye is a provocation, an invitation to witness and ending and claim it aloud.
Without wanting to, I was thrown into her words.
Without wanting to, I was writing my own claim.
Without wanting to, I wrote:




Silence

What I awoke to was the sound of silence.
Absolute silence.
And yet it wasn't silent,

The whoosh-thunk of the
oxygen machine still
filled the room.

The sound of morning
birds speckled the
new dawn air.

Only one sound was missing
but that 
one
piece missing
engulfed
all others,

changed life into
before and after,
broke the world
into pieces present and 
missing

left me
listening,
waiting childlike
for it to come
back,
please.

2 comments:

  1. \i love the 'please' at the very end. Amazone Canada finally got it listed so \i ordered mine today! Can't wait.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad to see how this sparked your own poem!

    ReplyDelete