Silence

poem by Brian McAllister | photograph by Gary Bloom |

I am learning to love silence, The slow drone of an autumn’s noon, The hushed cadence of a tired day. I am learning to love silence Now that my youth is behind me.

So much of the world is bluster, A ceaseless flurry through the mind. With a brutish heave it would shake Us into a quarrelsome snarl.

And a young mind, full of fire And certainty, aches to be heard. Oh, I know that delirium To shout and swell the babel. But

Now that my youth is behind me, I am learning to love silence, To be still, to listen and know, Beyond hearing, that still small voice.