SUNDAY HYMNS
What
Is a language
That is not spoken?
Silence.
Silent as the empty cottages,
As the deserted fields,
The grass-grown tumps,
The heaped-up midden.
Good men, great men and brave,
One by one, or leading others.
Seeming a wash of tides,
Motions of change,
Revolution of planets.
So they may be,
Or ripples on a pond,
A perturbation,
A breeze upon the forest tops:
Here, a noise, then gone.
Where are the great waves
As the tides recede?
Their roar growls less.
Sorrow and joy only.
Now a tale,
A whisper,
An epitaph,
A place for ivy fingers
To cleave to,
Slurring every mark,
Knife and chisel.
To end the silence,
Or to restore the silence?
To weave it.
Become substance,
Become word,
Become rhythm.
When does habit
Turn tradition?
When, pleas and moans,
Prayers?
Sunlight on
The distant mountain.
A wren seeks grubs
Among broken
Flowerpots.
—-
simonhlilly 