can you write a silent poem?

CAN YOU WRITE A SILENT POEM?

Can you write a silent poem
silent as tree whose phloem
feeds the branches and the leaves
with magic of the soil, and weaves
a canopy that only sighs
when the breezes empathize?

I can try, but if you seed it
do you think you’ll ever read it,
or will silence tend to deafen
your sensibilities. Is heaven
a place where sounds or silence reign,
or combination of the twain?



I added the last quatrain on 2/11/10.

The poem wsa inspired by Linda, who wrote to me in response to my poem “Telemachus”: “Can you write a silent poem?”




1/29/02, 2/11/10