In the Event Of
In the event that I forget
what this poem is about
I refer you now to the birds
outside my window.
They are silent – it is a sound-proof window,
but I want to speak of windows more.
I should have titled this poem ‘Window’
but then the silence and the birds got my attention.
What is a poem - rhetorical unanswerable question,
yet perhaps they are a silent window,
the words being birds only the eyes
and the heart can hear. Well they could be.
Before he died in the Hospice
my father would gaze out of the same window
everyday.
On the other side of that silent window
horses grazed in a paddock – nothing special.
We both would sit facing that expanse of glass,
I wondering what to say next,
He nodding and smiling at the horses,
the green cropped grass - the occasional birds.
Not a sound did they all make
but father was listening and seeing
what only those close to the center
of silence can see.
I believe the words end here.
In the event of my losing my place
In the ensuing quietus
please look away.
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