First poem in 15 years.

[bekitty]

I blame Doctor Who for this. Comments welcome.

--

silence will fall

silence has fallen
but not in my head; my mind
still jabbers with a thousand voices.

there is a crack, leonard says,
a crack in everything.
the doctor agrees.

that's how the light gets in.

if silence has fallen
and science is failing
and science is fiction
and fiction is all i have to
sustain me...

then i must ring the bell
but the bell has a crack
(it's in everything)
and no clapper
and will toll nothing but silence.

i swing the bell
to ring the bell
to end the voices
and bring the silence.

elsewhere
(in another universe)
an unseen bell tolls.

those who hear it shiver,
and make up stories about drowned churches
and joke weakly about "total immersion"
and tell each other that it was
mass hallucination
imagination

a moment of creation

but i (finally) hear
just
silence,

and welcome the light.

--
(2010)