Homeward, After the Last Day of Work

Here I am again, in a familiar silence Inside a bustling place full of lies In a bench of solitude, my preference To watch the world as it dies Before my senses, before my sighing eyes. I see silence amid the rushing crowd, I see silence confined in the traffic jam, I hear it in the children who laugh aloud, In the sound of my heart that tells me who I am. I see silence in the smile of a man That dies every day in his shrouded love, In the deep glances of an unsmiling woman, In the cries of the heart to the sky above. I hear the silence on the production floor Behind the tired smile of the labor, The payday in a commerce store, In a smile curling in shy valor. I hear silence that is imprisoned in a song, Silence concealed in a joyful poetry, The silence languishing among The strongest in the world of misery. I hear the silence of the footfalls As they walk toward the last exit, The silence in the surrounding walls That presses on the silence of the spirit. The laughter that dissolves in silence, In the darkness that echoes as I enter my room, Disguising the disappearing pretense That acknowledges the impending doom. Dec. 30, 2023, 8:27 a.m.