Echoes and Silence

SILENCE

of the voiceless
creator”     The earthworm,
pillbug, of the blind
consuming the bodies

now faceless, unrecognizable, as
death brings life to saprophage,

soil, flora, atmosphere;
their silent turning and returning
of the bodily goods   


I wrote this poem as a conversational response to the first stanza of Robert Creeley's "Echo", below: 


ECHO

of the nameless
breather"     The brother,
sister, of the faceless
now adamant body, all
still unsaid, unfledged,
unrecognized until
death all so sudden
comes for the people
and we are one
in this covenant, all the nameless,
those still breathing,
all brothers, sisters,
mothers, fathers,
just a piece of the real,
the fading action, one afer one
this indifferent, inexorable, bitter
affliction strikes down   

          - Robert Creeley
            Life and Death
            NY: New Directions, 1998