For Sound

They tell us

to be at peace,

silence matters most.

That’s what they tell us

with their mouths,

say it out loud, praise 

silence with 

their voices though

language brought us here,

carried along the whorls

of our ears, through the labyrinth

concealed within.

What we are now

is what the last sentences

we heard made us.

When they praise our silence,

urge us to be silent, sit

with nothing in our mouths,

say nothing,

they are saying

shut up, 

we have no need

to be further built.

Write it down instead, they say.

Write it down,

we’ll read it in silence,

sound it out for ourselves…

they never stop talking about

how we should sit in stillness.

This is what they think 

of us — two ears, one mouth, 

they say. This is the balance,

they say:

more listening, less talk —

forgetting lungs, larynx, tongue,

lips, resonance from sinus, sonorities

built into our bones; we’re made 

to have voices;

clearly there is something 

to be said — so we

talk. They don’t like it. We

chant. They don’t like it. We

yell. They don’t 

like it. They don’t like it —

shhhh, they say. Shhhh,

to people built from sound,

built for sound.