Why is the silence of ordinary things
So difficult to bear?
Why can’t I just sit like a chair by a window
Or a heap of seashells
Someone gathered on a shelf
Or shoes piled by a door
Needing no more than to be
When I am alone
Why must I annihilate myself in the glow of the screens
Or some drunken dumbshow
While I could just as well be quiet and sit
Swallow the silence down in dark gulps
And hold it inside patiently
Till it started to speak
I think those things were easier to do and appreciate when we were much younger, before we were initiated into a world of pure, adulterated junk. The natural and seemingly ordinary objects would still fascinate as in days of yore if only we gave them new heed of eye and ear and heart and soul.
