Silent Cacophony

To finish her work and to honour my love who now dwells forever in heaven above It’s something that I am committed to do to bring her invention to each one of you She worked for a doctorate and a degree to be the inventor she so longed to be To bring forth the tiniest sounds to our ears the sounds of near silence that nobody hears Convinced that we’ve all missed the utter delight of whispers and murmurs so soft in the night She set out to amplify sounds that slip by like lenses that show infra-red to the eye She’d found ways to listen to daffodils humming ironic that she never heard the bus coming Today though, I think I’ve completed her task I’ll test the device, it’s not a big ask I smile at her urn on my stone mantle shelf then switch on the switch that she should switch herself I watch the display as it seeks out a sound the readout says “SEARCHING” and then it says “FOUND” Cacophonous melee, a room full of sound the creepings and crawlings of life all around From under the carpet and inside the walls but then a faint voice as it urgently calls The direction finder I cautiously turn to find that the voice emanates from her urn I cover my ears as I hear my love shout, “Where am I, it’s dark, let me out, let me out!” * I run from the house, the device still switched on I can’t bear her screams but I don’t want her gone I try to ignore, as I beat my retreat the howls and the screeches from beneath my feet The horrified squealing of insects in flight as oncoming windshields appear in their sight Two snails in the road emit stereo squeals and race from the path of a truck driver’s wheels The sounds of a slaughter will not let me pass the terrified lawn as a man mows his grass Inside his house as his wife makes a salad a lettuce cries out like a Halloween ballad A boy with an apple then freezes mid-munch as the apple cries out, “I don’t want to be lunch!” And still my love’s voice calling all of the while I have no recourse but to rotate the dial But now I hear curses which just seems absurd as they hail from a worm in the beak of a bird Everywhere, everything living in fear fear that as humans we’re not meant to hear My sanity calls for precision and luck and the pending arrival of that speeding truck The sonic device booms its ear splitting wails as it waits for the truck beside two speeding snails