Silent Darkness
Silent Darkness
It’s never truly dark or quiet here.
not the soft secret darkness
of a moonless mountain meadow,
so quiet you can hear a rabbit
rustle across the snow.
We used to stand all evening,
watching snowflakes dance
out of the dark portentous sky,
frosting sable pines and patient firs.
The wind would dart and knife through slender cracks
between our mittens and our sleeves,
between our kerchiefs and our caps
chilling us until we huddled close,
a bitter cold that only love could thaw.
And now, here, the city lights deflect the dark,
the stars are too few, the people too many.
Security lights and night lights,
street lights and headlights
exterminate the dark
yet leaving us with dark and lonely souls.
California winters are not cold, just wet,
with lonely crowds of people that spice the nights.
Dreams are ghosts we only barely know
that dance and weave and flutter through the days.
Not lost, we cannot find the place
we knowingly relinquished long ago.
Solitude cannot traverse the gap
to a god we wish we could believe were there.
For solitude cannot in truth exist
where traffic sounds and radios
and the tramp of feet upstairs
remind us that we’re lonely, not alone.
Silence beckons like a distant dream.
I miss the dark, satin silences
with snowflakes drifting down,
and bitter stars that sparkle
like distant souls that may not touch the earth.
6/13