Silence
The hills surround us
Sloping, climbing, looming
The friendly surmountable
Humps of central Kentucky.
Rocks everywhere, always
Limestone, slab-like
Scattered among the cedars
Some grown inside cedars.
Every weathered divide
A gullied creeklet
Wet-weather channels
Nearly hidden by grass.
Hardwoods delineate
Every waterway, large and small,
Especially the creek, and
The bluff down to the Chaplin.
You make your own music
With your own creatures
That fly and flitter and croak
And watch me from a wire.
A little whirlwind
Makes the leaves roar briefly
Tonight the whippoorwills
Will own all of it.
But mostly there’s the silence
How recently I didn’t know you so well
You all bring me nurturing peace
5/22/1988
