Silence – a poem for my father, 15 June 2000

Silence 1

For my father, who listens

A cold song playing in my floating head,
Sighing familiar old tunes of times past,
Coffee, thick espresso, pouring darkly, steaming,
Birds all flying away for the winter.

Buildings rising out of trees, quiet brown-green leaves,
Impermanence built of plastic and paraffin, fire and smoke;
Lives built on sand dunes of fragile structures,
Fragile bodies built of light and energy and impotence.

A figure walking on a rooftop,
Contemplating the view over the Cape Flats;
Trying to rise into the air,
Contrast solid reality with unreflected thoughts.

A sparkle of lights coming on all at once as it darkens outside,
The 5.30 train rumbles past, not stopping at my station;
The hard lines, harsh edges of day are stroked by dusk;
A faint breeze catching only the top of a palm tree,
as Egyptian geese chuck-chatter on the Liesbeek River;
The sounds of a soccer match carry from a nearby field.

Noting to remind me of the Middle East war in this calm evening,
Nor of starving children and crying parents in Zimbabwe;
Less still, of ongoing fighting in the DRC;
Of fanatics trying, willing to kill, from all parts of the world,
All points of the compass,
To kill for possession, to be right, justified, avenged,

Nothing in the quiet sky to recall the screams
Of the torture victims in steel boxes;
Or freezing down-and-out street people going through the rubbish.

Far removed from the present suffering,
Forever from the past genocides, rapes, murders,
Voices never to be recalled again.

Silence 2

The grey sky of pink-white light and darkness,
Silent, tall evergreen trees, quiet village of Rondebosch,
The misty quietness in your head wherever you are,
Wherever you go to meditate,
To be still and find peace,

Do not forget the smoke,
Do you not see it?
Can’t you smell the wholesome, comforting wood-smoke?

Do not forget the silenced voices.
Can you not hear them in the peace outside?

Live the calm, here, now
Enjoy the peace, remember to listen
To the silence.

What do you not hear?
What do you not see?
Listen to the Silence
Of Humanity.