The noise passed.
We were left behind.

We were lonely at first.
We became accustomed to it.

The noise had been young,
made of all the things of youth:

insistence, shouting, imploring.
We’d gotten over these.  We’d

changed, or the noise had become
anathema, or the shouters had

decided against us.  (That last one hurt
as certainly as abandonment always does.)

But we moved on by standing our ground.
We didn’t stop what were doing: noticing,

affirming, finally growing moss, attending to
the deeply worn grooves and paths

that the noise had used to pass us by
and then left behind.  Look,

we whispered to no one, here’s a stone
I’ve never seen, here’s a new flower.

It was quiet when we said these things.
We could hear first ourselves, then each other.

Now, the noise has become
distant.  We sometimes hear single words

rise above that faraway clamor:
“elders,”  “honor,”  “legendary;”  

words for someone else
to ponder and debate,

as we have our work to do and fierce,
stubborn love for this new quiet we do it in.