After the cheeping rattle of ice chips beat against the window
and replaced the quiet drift of falling snowflakes
silence descended and coated the ground.
Now there is no sound,
as if Earth, herself, is holding her breath.
The freeze is so profound that even the tires on cars
silently whirl round and around and around,
trying to grip as the cars slide and slip,
like ideas trying not to collide,
unable to take purchase of a single thought;
awakened from silent dreams fraught
with swallowed screams and naught
to do with this newly frozen world.
New snowflakes, smaller and tighter now twirl
hidden by silent vows made on quiet streets
to freeze out life and cover the Other,
refusing to see them as sister and brother.
The only remarks that life remains for sure
are three breaths controlled and held in check:
the warmth of hot air blown from furnace grates,
the kettle of water heated to steep tea,
and the certainty that I am still me.
Breathe in and breathe out, and never doubt
that frozen days come silently to give us time
to redesign and renew Earth,
and a new birth
of a new humanity.
Warming brings the thaw of words hidden
by the freeze of words now bidden
to silence by those who fear trust hidden by design.
I find the hidden poetry in this silent freeze.
I make those hidden words mine.
I wake with you and your warm spirit to shout
across the deep freeze all about.
Sound carries farther on cold air.
So shout and sing and show you care
in this heavily silent deep freeze.
Never let silence shout you out.
