My greatest teacher
is not wisdom
it's silence

snow melts
on the field-
muddy pawprints

Advised me,
Keep your ears long,
Your tongue short
Eyes open ,
Now my friends call me a wise owl.
2/3/2025

Our souls do what they do best. Speak fluently in silence.

Fences fail quietly—
in a slow tilt,
colors give way,
surrendering—
a silent retreat
from brown to brittle.

I press a finger,
catch the rough
edge of metal,
its dust scratching my skin—
years thin us,
like coins drowned
in riverbeds.

It goes this way,
I think—
a long fade,
grit slipping
into dark water,
turning to mud,
just enough to remember
we once held on.

And I wonder if we, too,
were made to loosen,
to dissolve—
no shards or splinters,
just a long sigh—
as time corrodes
at our hearts,
turning all we were to rust.

A carpenter touches me,
  feels length and texture,
    adjusts to perfect fit,
      varnishes till I glow
        with polished pride.

Aristocratic fists
  use my glossy guide rail
    to find their champagne boxes.
      They listen in patchouli perfumed privacy
        while I hear only distant chords
          of an unseen opera.

When the lifts fail
  bent arthritic fingers grasp
    and haul old bodies
      grumbling and groaning,
        step by step,
          to the circle.

But my favourites are the sticky paws
  of children ******* sweets
    hurrying to the pantomime;
      in their haste
        they leave a tacky sucrose veneer
          on my glassy lacquer.
        
          My sugar coating lasts
      until the complaining cleaners
    reset the theatre
for tomorrow.