In your silence I find my voice
In the quietude of your presence
at first came unease;
that familiar itch of discomfort
enveloped me.
As I would peer in your eyes
searching for what to say
sleuthing for clues you'd never give away
I realize:
Words pleasing to your ears
are merely
a false sense of security
in seeing me get through my years.
So like a mold casts its void,
you knew in your silence I would find my own voice.
"Why?" I whispered at five
when we came across the fated bird on the street
"Why?" I ask again, in quarantine.
"Without death, there is no life"
I hear when I listen
Now I settle into the familiar itchiness
of finding my own wisdom
In time, your silence will make me, me.
-----
My dad was a man of few words. He passed away from COVID-19 in December 2020. I recall my first memorable confrontation with death occurred when my dad and I were walking outside of the hair salon my grandmother owned and my mom worked at. There was this dead bird, possibly a sparrow, outside the shop where the parking lot met the sidewalk. And I talked to my dad about death at that time. In many ways, my dad's proclivity for silence in his parenting style, and the topic of death have a unifying theme of dealing with discomfort, that in a backward way, I found brought me comfort in my grief.
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Submitted by ayse_m on January 20, 2021
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 54 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXXB CDDCEBBE XX XXXX XAXB X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,285 |
Words | 245 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 8, 2, 4, 4, 2 |
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"In your silence I find my voice" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/60689/in-your-silence-i-find-my-voice>.
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