A World of Silence

My dreams are black-and-white movies,
no voices, with the cinema pianist tapping
silent notes on the hammer dulcimer.

Shadowy images, cast by a candle, flicker
along the walls, and I am back in school,
walking, half-asleep to midnight mass.

I stumble forward, from that distant past
towards a series of unknown futures
none of which may ever come to pass.

In the Big Top of my head, the gymnasts
hold hands and in silence float their clouds
above the heads of the wondering crowds.

To fall or not to fall, to fall to rise no more.
Soundless sighs erupt from silent, open
mouths as the tight-rope walker sets out.

The umbrella in his hand is a Roman candle
that throws shadows on the circus sand
as clowns with bulbous noses cavort below.

The ring-master flexes an inaudible whip.
The carnival ponies trot up and down.
The motor-bike rider accelerates. In the hush
the bike ascends the Wall of Death and falls,
diving down, down, down, into silence.

“All words come out of silence. The language of poetry rises from, and returns to, silence.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 110.