Silence by Billy Collins
Silence fascinates me. Creative thoughts, ideas, not to mention prayer and poetry, come out of silence.
Billy Collins is one of our finest and most popular poets.
Silence
and the silence of the orchid.
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.
And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night
like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.
Poetry April 2005