This morning’s raucous quiet: din of a lawnmower
Pulse-like swell of cicadas chattering in the brush
Trucks grumbling along a nearby highway.
Under a sea of high thin clouds, a sheer ocean of sky
The dead are islands: an archipelago
Of mute echoes, of resonant silence
Their voices still within this gorgeous commotion—
Crow call, water burbling, wind rough in trees—
In a weed’s play, against skin, in the heart’s vibrations.
Under the racket of this day’s distractions
Under the birds’ clamorous singing
Under lapping waves of noise
Their stopped tongues their stilled voices speaking.
Copyright © 2017 by Ed Falco. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 24, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.