Invention

“The deaf don’t believe in silence. Silence is the invention of the hearing.” ~Ilya Kaminsky

As an olm, I know that the dark

Is just a mystical ether

That only the hopelessly light-struck

Could imagine filling this cave

Of emptiness that surrounds me.

As a stone, I have come to think

That stillness is the myth of creeks.

As a cut-glass tumbler, left out

In all weathers and forgotten

After the long-ago picnic 

Of lovers, I can’t comprehend

Why these sinuously bending

Twigs in the tree above me fear

For green-stick fractures in the frost,

Why they rattle so bitterly

And whisper about brittleness. 

As these words that came from nowhere

And from someone lost before them

As they now appear, I refuse 

To believe in haunting. Death is 

The invention of the living.