SILENCE AND STARS

[jim turner]

If I could find silence
I would listen to the stars
in that silence.

But crickets and mosquitoes sing;
always, faraway, a train mumbles,
screams, and a door
slams. Voices rise and clash.
Hunger groans aloud; gunfire erupts,
echoes, and somewhere bombs
burst!

The strident earth trembles;
atoms of air and cloud
collide and thunder; with fury
the raging surf of storms
drowns all other sound
and I am beaten deaf
to the crackling, sizzling
silence of their beautiful fires.

I think cicadas do not sing to suns,
that anger cannot see beyond itself;
I know that city-blinded eyes
have never seen a starlit sky;
and I know that one night soon
I shall listen to perfect silence,
will touch them with my fingertips
and share the silence of the stars.

Jim 12/14/06

[mnaz]

jim, some great stuff you've shared here lately.
city-blinded eyes, beaten deaf to the possibility..
thanks.