-Elizabeth Brewster
Silence is obsolete, that thick silence
Soft as anow or a slow bird's wing
Spread over the world, which I remember
From the days of a farm childhood
When cars did not run on the winter roads
And we sat in the snow-dark house
Without radio or television or telephone
In a family not given to chat,
Each wrapped around in the fold of his own thought,
Deep and thick as wool.
Awakending to the roar of Hondas
Or my neighbour playing his transistor in the bath
Through the too-thin walls of the apartment building,
I regret that we have abolished silence.
Now, although we may perhaps be lonely,
We are never really alone,
And therefore never perfectly together.