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What The Dog Perhaps Hears

 If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us, 
then silence is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth; 
it may be asparagus heaving, 
headfirst, into the light
and the long brown sound
of cracked cups, when it happens.
We would like to ask the dog if there is a continuous whir because the child in the house keeps growing, if the snake really stretches full length without a click and the sun breaks through clouds without a decibel of effort, whether in autumn, when the trees dry up their wells, there isn't a shudder too high for us to hear.
What is it like up there above the shut-off level of our simple ears? For us there was no birth cry, the newborn bird is suddenly here, the egg broken, the nest alive, and we heard nothing when the world changed.

Poem by Lisel Mueller
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Book: Shattered Sighs