On Silences

Stefan Fiedorowicz
absolutearts.com

Lying atop the sheets
on a warm summer night
sleep is the far`off train`whistle
haunting the dark silence
thru an open window

The Island is as quiet
as a cathedral’s sanctuary
the flames of the votive candles
heard licking stained glass
at prayer for the dead

Silence like simplicity
is frightening to moderns
addicts to their noisy machines
heeding the drip of water
from the leaky faucet

Coyotes on the ridge
begin where whistles stop
seems they too wear of silences
somewhere up the Sound
the buoy’s bell clangs

“Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.” ~ Wendell Berry

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