I understand silence

I understand silence
Formed like a palpable brick wall obscuring what view I glimpsed before,
Held up like a formidable traffic cop's hand, calling
HALT! No oncoming traffic in this direction, kindly
Detour yourself elsewhere.
I understand that silence.

I understand withdrawn I don't feel
Like forming words today because my mouth is
Unworthy and the breath in my lungs too weak and pathetic
To push sound.

And the silence that roils like the edge of a forest fire, flickering with
Blazing goddamn it I'm mad intaken breaths and rough nasal expirations
That curl like a fist aimed at my belly.

And I remember too that silence like a warm blanket
Under which two companions
Might curl together and be soft and content,
Kittens under a mother's warmth.
I remember breathing that peace.

And oh the many other silences... the
You don't have any right to speak here silence,
Soon that bird will sing again wilderness silences,
And the books absorb all the sound anyway reverential library silence
The sometimes poignant church silences broken by an occasional old man's sneeze.

But this silence, this wide moat of submerged terrible words, that spilled out
And then became silence
This silence really
Makes me want
to
scream.

--cby 09