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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Hearing My Heart

I want to hear my heart again.
Take away the silence in my ears.
The unnatural quiet that denies
me answers to my prayers.
The words of a child,
the petals of a question
flying off,
the laughter of love,
the riddle never answered.

I am advised
the upper registers of my world
are gone.
Where voices fly,
the weep of a violin,
a woman’s whispering touch
at night.
Lost,
lost,
channels closed,
dawn clouded over,
mumbling that was poetry.
Submerged music,
voices,
amplitude,
the inflection
that tells its story.

Now, technology,
to coax them back,
the creep of boards,
the fluttering of leaves,
the echo of wind,
the shore that receded
leaving me lonely,
and sometimes afraid.
When I listened
and heard nothing.
When I believed,
everything had gone away
and I talked to emptiness.

Published inIndex of all Poems