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.
Dark Matter 