Silent (AHHH!!!)

In the stir and crackle of moment

the assembly blinks and settles

as the universe spins still at massive velocity

around a centrifugal point

the microphone stand

the sitting room

the afternoon breeze

the words that are plucked

like grapes

from the inner caverns

of vision

And passed around like sweet and sour

or picante hors d'oeuvres

steeped in life's hunger to know

meat from gristle

seed from rind

as the

pestle and mortar of heart and mind

separate food from foul and ash from ember.

we all breathe in as

the sentences breath out into the room

like a single organism.

yet so multifaceted

as to remain almost a continually evolving mystery

even to our own corner of the room.

our eyes shift and pause looking into one another

for the common ground and the boundary

till we weave a unity of cross purposes

and break and remake pacts with ourselves

and one another unless we disarm in weariness

over it or give in to the habit of battle or silence.

So as the curtains and the shutters and odd assortment of chairs and faces

take backstage to collective memory and we are emboldened to lay bare our

families founding grand/fathers foibles and follies we are able to alloy his glowing

strengths and it quickens us all to feel its pulse living still

stirring in our unbidden moments of grief and hope and confusion and calm that frame grasping for what we are and are not.

For I know all to well that I will cast off from this same stage all to soon

and the roles we have played will echo and fall silent

and be recalled and replayed

and forgotten again

till memories blood and myth

join like the dust of stars

and our unique mosaic of DNA

falling from the undertakers hand

into the silent

AHHHH!