We rise to break the silence, open up

a cogent pattern in a mindless mist

uncaring for the human heart it feeds;

a medium that holds both oxygen

and virus, gentle rain and hurricane,

hail of destruction, calm and balm.

 

The stars roar with subatomic plasma

explosions human ears will never hear;

solar winds can’t reach us in this shelter.

Silence is ground — our voices figure.

 

First sounds: the sheering sheen of slapping waves

as mountains rose to pipe the quiet gale

through basso canyon walls and waterfalls;

the coloratura ring of reaching peaks;

the tenor of unending newborn sands

finding one another in multitudes

of dunes; the alto laughter of settling

silt sifting down into leeward shade.

 

Then arose the reedy swells of slender

slips of cells fed on sunlight as they sliced

the silent breeze with life’s insistent force;

another then another, standing each

alone, extending their expressive genes

first in patches then in green expanses

that grew to thickets of life, ahum with

stubborn strength against wind that never stops

but that is silent without resistance.

 

Broken silence mends when we stop speaking.

It will not stay in pieces on the ground

but must be broken again and again.

We rise to break a silence that smothers

us with indifference; silence, not a thing

itself, but preexisting condition

that will continue without the action

of our words. We break it with our voices—

the snapping hand, the strike of drum, the slap

of skin on skin, wet with sweat—wind taken

in with effort of our torsos and will;

a breath is drawn, then pressed from canyon lungs

between the narrow cataracts of gorge

and larynx, valleys of our fertile tongues

through chalk-cliff teeth and lips like worms that writhe

alive to form the meaning of our voice.

 

What can we speak of if we do not see?

What do we see of which we cannot speak?

Listen to the voices all around us

though muffled they may be through fiber fog

of masks there all along but never seen.

Eyes shut, both blind and sighted see alike.

Masked, our voices speak with common accent;

the shared shape of our personal keening

enfolds our angry shouts and blends our grief.

 

Yet still I see your eyes, uniquely yours.

They seem to me to be the eyes of all.

Your song, the voice of all, still sings your heart,

but closer, wiser, infinite, evolved.

Though our laughter and weeping sounds the same

through generations, across seething seas

and silent land, this shape of air, our words

here now, have not been heard or thought, since long

before the sky first moved above the Earth.