Stillness as Voice

We knit by crafts, patient those tiny squares, our grandma’s wisdom; while tears crochet, our puppy’s growl, antagonized by cloth: our breaths as signs; our agreements dependent upon winds; our tales to souls as driven.  (I’m but a lad, seated near a table, this beam of light; to hear that voice, addressed as see-through, but a cave of petroglyphs—that cruel tug, that caring agony, this feature emerging: about those turns, that sweaty face, that exchange of glances).  She built a garden, those ripe tomatoes—those orange peppers. I saw resilience; that flowered spirit, this expansion a human being; to debug lettuce, this desire for cleanness, this biblical separation; to quote his life, this feast of literature, as too, this hole seated within personality: that glare, that twitch, that palm, that gesture, those snails, those eyes.  (I’m an adolescent, aware of too much, sworn to secrecies; those smothered emotions, as grooming a monster, as conflicted with temperament: that heart, that glory, an underground system, a series of confirmations).  I met a feeling, racing through fields of wheat, a palm colored by pomegranates; again, that voice, by middle his name, this ink forming symbols.  (I’m a young soul, this bold confidence, this boisterous laugh; as freed from islands, racing for jewels, our necks teasing guillotines. If but that heart, unfettered from chaos, prior to dungeons; to hear that voice, as wailed those truths, while steeped in magic boxes: that small kitten, so wild but frightened, a present for grandma).  We sat at embers, surrounded by sands, a tomb as a tent. I wouldn’t sleep, a tale as hidden, as to pass a test—this clump of grass, as fevered to live, too young to recall details; but lives an image, as gray as postmortem—that bibliography, outlining perspectives, deepened by clarity.  (We’ve sewn a mask, this family of spirits, while judging our silence; that inner notebook, steady with imbalances, while favored our perspectives: this dying life, that agonized woman, those few interactions; as dying to comport, if but for acceptance, as denied this full freedom; to disappear, as called to limbo, this ornament of sorrows).  I’m but a soul, seated for twenty minutes, acknowledged as different: such quiet grace; such quiet pain; such compassionate distance: at tears, a paradox; as witnessed, a sitting with; while birds are chirping mother’s silence.