I thought life would be silent with you,
that our days and hours would be filled
with the quiet accord of love.
Book-quiet at night,
we would sit in the alcove of your window,
silently,
and watch the rain trickle down the glass.
When a car whooshed past on the street below,
a light would flare up—
white and brilliant,
then scarlet red,
running along the rivulets.
I fell in love with the promise of that quiet bliss,
filled to the brim with emptiness.
But here, below,
all is gnawing noise and breathless air
and a sallow hope caught in the restless
thoroughfare of thought.
Who pined for you till the isthmus between my ribs
was swallowed up with bile?
Was it love that sought its exodus
in the shuttered casements of your eyes?
At whose behest did I kiss the lids of Lazarus?
How I have longed for the absolution
of those quiet eyes,
standing on the station waiting for your train,
and a long, quiet ride through still valleys
and deep-rooted mountains.
Yet always am I pursued by that departing view,
or hemmed in by an ever-narrowing horizon;
and between the two, a hollow silence—
gagging itself with its fist.
If only I could come to silence
from a choice that was not made of noise—
true silence,
brimming over with emptiness,
chiming up with silver bells
on the heels of a quiet spring,
like the silver bracelets jangling on your ankles
leading me to your bed again.