When the music stopped

The constant noise –

The humming, the chattering, the clanging,

So irksome, so irritating –

Is what keeps me alive now.

 

The music, the songs, the rhythm

I lost long ago.

I am deaf

To the songs of the birds,

To the splashes

That the waves make.

The pitter-patter of the raindrops

Fails to move me now.

 

The sound of the grating prison gate,

The metallic boom of the boots,

The abuses of the condemned

And the silent cry of the owl at night

Keep me alive now.

 

***