Writing Exercises on Silence

Great Silence, while Your eyes search
Goshen's dim streets lit by moon, faint hope,
and factory smoke, I descend into the earth.

Into mystery, thin pages and intimate light
at angles off floorboards, white walls, and
cobwebs. It's You I dread despite

all reassurances, the dust that coats
my basement floor and sticks to bare socks;
it has been one with me, now brushed off

in disgust. Oh Silence that slept with me
through the dark, come close like the breath
on my pillow, like the depth of my shadow,

like the hand of my lover parting my hair,
slightly graying at tips but unnoticed
in the thin beams of the dawn. Silence

I am uniting with You, though the brief
rise and fall of my chest dismisses You,
each hold and catch in wonder summons back.

The crack of barefeet on hardwood, a cry
that inaugurates the sun. You dissipate into
my day and a gradually long for another morning.