What the Dog Perhaps
Hears
If an inaudible
whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence
is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth;
it may be asparagus heaving,
headfirst, into the light
and the long
brown sound
of cracked cups, when it happens.
We would like to ask the
dog
if there is a continuous whir
because the child in the house
keeps
growing, if the snake
really stretches full length
without a click and the
sun
breaks through clouds without
a decibel of effort,
whether in
autumn, when the trees
dry up their wells, there isn't a shudder
too high
for us to hear.
What is it like up
there
above the shut-off level
of our simple ears?
For us there was no
birth cry,
the newborn bird is suddenly here,
the egg broken, the nest
alive,
and we heard nothing when the world changed.
~ Lisel Mueller
~
(Alive Together:
New and Selected Poems)
