Almost Silence
by Nadya Aisenberg
At night the dreams that are stored in the earth
rise up like groundmist, seeking their sleepers,
each to each, and enter silently, as they will depart.
And the sleepers who talk in their dreams utter
no sound, though something new is made, mist
condensing to image, a resolution we lost when we wake.
All speech tends toward silence, Goethe said, and so
the dream, strewing its path with misted grass, returns
through the humus of memory down
to the storehouse of dreams. Mist burns off in sun.
In the morning lips that were silent and wise
speak only to those who walk above ground.
Copyright © 2001 by Nadya Aisenberg.
This poem is from the book Measures of Salmon
Publishing Ltd. Reprinted with permission.
