Yes, and sometimes they are overwhelming, and the only voices I can hear. But right now I fear it's only
THE SILENCE AFTERWARDS
Rolf Jacobsen
translated by Roger Greenwald
Try to be done now
with the challenges and the sales statistics,
the Sunday brunches and the combustion furnaces,
the military parades, the architectural competitions
and the six lanes with traffic lights.
Come through that and be done
with party preparations and market-research analyses,
for it is late,
it is much too late,
be done and come home
to the silence afterwards
that meets you like a warm spurt of blood against your forehead
and like thunder rolling
and like strokes of mighty bells
that set your eardrums quivering,
for words don't exist anymore,
there are no more words,
from now on everything will speak
with the voices of' stone and tree.
The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of' each blade
and in the blue space between the stones.
The silence
that follows the shots and the birdsong.
The silence that lays a blanket over the dead man
and that waits in the stairwell till everyone's left.
The silence
that lies like a baby bird between your hands,
your only friend.