When the house is quiet
a breathing develops
in common with the walls.
I wonder about the meaning
of silence as I inhale
all the air that ever was in this small city
of zeros and one without purpose.
Later I’ll take my guitar
to the park. They tell me
I have a permit to play. I’m glad
the city will permit me to play.
As my friends join in, there may be songs
we sing that we don’t know.
Like life: winging the watersheds.
There’s no return to morning,
just new mornings, new pauses
to fill with spurs of the moment.
Then we all breathe, and sing,
and talk with no one taking it down
for all its profundity, a gigantic carrying-on
of passers by and sleepers.