Wordless

Too many words—
I cannot bear them.
Darkness pleases me more,
sitting alone
with an old desire for quiet.
 
Too many voices—
I cannot endure them.
I search, almost to death,
for a friend
who will sit with me,
face to face,
without speech.
 
Complete surrender,
solitary practice—
the language of joy
slowly fades away.
 
Disciplined air,
a portrait of sunset,
rises in fierce lament.
Mute, I sit and think.
 
What need to know
the depths of water’s story?
What use in this chatter
of restless curiosity?
 
Can you sit before me—
speechless—
for a century?
 
Bitter grief turns corrupt
beneath the weight
of relationships
built only of words.
 
At the clang of language,
institutions tremble,
their wires snap.
 
What if no words at all?
Only eyes locked with eyes,
lifelong,
between you and me.
 
Silent love-speech—
in the courtyard
of a new sun,
quietly,
we love.
 
If words fall away,
let bridges rise in thought,
let all conversation
be understood in silence.
 
Yet from the slogans of marches
voices still rise,
returning again,
to trouble, to bind.
 
But in the sky of freedom—
that day will come—
a revolution of silence.
 
And here in my room
I choose to love thought,
as waves upon waves
carry the quiet life,
whether anyone knows,
or not.