The yammering on the radio
frets on me in spite of
my strained work at not listening.

Two people are talking about
how not to trust anything you read
or hear.

It’s seven thirty in the morning
and I don’t trust them to know
a damn thing about anything.

I force myself to say it:
I don’t
believe them. I don’t know
who they are,
I can’t trust them,
I will not believe them.

Now one quotes
National Geographic.
I don’t believe them.
The other quotes the Bible.
I can’t believe them.

Do you believe them?
I don’t believe you.

Meanwhile, there’s a dog barking upstairs
at a car driving slowly by.
My cat sleeps on the couch,
her back to me. I hear a bird above the radio
chatter and I strain to tell myself
its name — a mockingbird, a sparrow?
Perhaps something more exotic, like
a ruby throated grosbeak, immature,
wounded in the wing, damaged but
still chirping? The cat continues
to sleep and the dog shuts up
and the bird does too.

Soon enough,
full silence will come. You won’t
believe anything except your own
breath. Even that you won’t trust
entirely, until you sink into the depths
of it.

When you come back to this life
you will be redeemed and carry
that silence within you
through the noise, through the lies,
through everything you face.
Like a crystal. Like a
formless fire, a single
belief without name,
lighting the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T