"she was wrong...."

she weeps,
for all those years of
wasted moments

moment that were wasted,
wasted
wishing for
more
silence...

but, what is the silence,
what is the beauty of solitude
without a reason for its wanting

the laughter of her children, the
train at midnight coming into the station,
the rattle of carriages on the cobbles
just outside her window
the whistle of a tea kettle, the whispered
urgency of a daughter's eager demand for
just one more lullaby, a son's basketball
against the garden wall.

it is in the context of these rich life-noises...
the breathing and weeping,
the giggles in church, arguing from the
backseat of the car...that we find
the very things that make solitude rich with
promise...

but tonight she longs to be able to sweep the
silence out with last night's ashes
to hear her daughters secrets, her son's
loud music throbbing through the kitchen
walls. 

to hear the radiators clank and the bathwater
running, her husband snoring from the arm
chair in the other room...

tonight, the clock on the mantle ticks slowly,
she dreams of what is never forgotten...and weeps
for the sounds she once thought were
not as full of divine music as  silence
would have been...

she was wrong...