Inside, the inner noise: a drone
that is not a voice, but the shape
a voice leaves when it has ceased.
A humming in the beams, the low
pressure of a sealed vase. At least
the outer sounds imply a there to go.
They speak of streets, of weather, of a bell.
They are the maps of countries I can’t earn.
I listen, and I listen well,
and feel the perfect, frozen burn
of understanding without ground.
A translation into no known tongue.
I hear the moving parts declare
a meaning I am not designed
to hold, as a shelf is not designed
to hold the falling, only the fall.
And in the end, there is the mind,
and in the mind, a white, soundless hall.
And in the hall, a door, and at the door,
a listening, and nothing more.
