Absence of noise
It’s not that I enter into this thing called silence.
I don’t let it in or go out to find it.
Silence is my natural state.
It’s the vast patience of the sky
that clouds take so for granted,
where birds of feather and birds of steel
come and go not noticing!
It’s the space between heartbeats,
between breath, between objects
and objections.
And so I disrobe, peel off layers:
Ego and fears and the marled texture
of judgment that leaves patterns
in the skin of everyone it touches,
And the labels my layers wear—mother, daughter,
sister, wife, poet, teacher, artist, ex-wife.
Even seeker, even that I’ll shed and go on shedding
Until being an I isn’t an option, nor a me or a her.
Until there is just the absence of noise.
There is just the absence of
Just the absence
Just the
.
-Melinda Coppola