Earplugs

Robert Ronnow
The Imaginary i

Earplugs

Sweet silence!
late in life
I discover earplugs
my wife’s pastel plugs
that fill the ear canal
by compressing for insertion
and expanding once in place

One mauve one sepia
no lawnmowers, no leafblowers
wood chippers or persistent phoebes
water to the thirsty traveler
morphine to the cancer
better than knee surgery
or a negotiated end to the war

Such silence is so sweet
I might try blindness too
like Homer, Borges, Milton
just kidding, should there be a god listening
the veil of life is thin
if one doesn’t believe in mystery
or accepts the rules entirely

One green one brown
two leaves sleep-touching
then a breeze!
the day I left life behind
hitchhiking as the sun descends
morning air cold and clear
I cannot hear what I cannot see

The freedom of summer gone
one more season and one more after that
he lived with one eye after that
in a mind there is apocalypse
no one can hear it
but one day you die
and this is the ideal silence you sought

Silence of winter
one elk in aspen
mountains of dark sound
and a stream’s breath song
cities make a silent distant sound
with simple joy men may give up desiring to be heard
how much tinnitus can you handle

Graceful as silence
sailing through the ferns and understory
why make a sound or noise or do anything to the page
the national debate
garrulous, querulous
the sound of shoulders shrugging
speech, none, you can’t sum it up in one more metaphor

Censor crop shorten and silence
no tv! no self-pity
first light, green tea
no sound but wind
the sound still comes out of the flowers
smoke the cigarette, sound the subwoofer
and prepare for a powerful anesthesia