How Precious Is Silence

Written upon a very quiet morning in November when even the sipping of my coffee made a great racket. The photo is Blue Mountain, five miles away. (Blue Hill in the poem-poetic license etc)

        How Precious Is Silence

Some mornings have a stillness-
        nothing has moved nor
          will ever move again.
            The valley sweeps 
                down then up
             Moose Mountain.
            In that wide space,
              so close at hand,
       reigns a soundlessness,
         enlarged by distance,
                 broken only
          by a terse nuthatch.

        Beyond our mountain
                sits Blue Hill,
     old rock and a silent face.
              A five mile quiet
    stretches across that span
    and, scattered like marbles,
              ten ton boulders
            have come to rest.

            We must be heard
         over this wordless roar.
              Our fears grow-
        “Isn’t anyone listening?”
           Do trees have fears
            of falling unheard?

        How precious is silence 
            and how fragile too.
        Only one thing makes it
        and millions can break it.
           How fragile is silence 
          and how precious too.

                      11/2022

My morning view, east deck.