page 17

An Introduction to Silence

My wakefulness should not
be taken for comprehension.

Sounds fail to carry
which do not love themselves.

It is left to the purely inhuman
to thus gulp and tinkle,

but who can doubt that the rain
knows what its murmur means?

Cities have become
the scrupulous meters of night,

but morning, morning is here
like something fallen or spilt.