In the end, there is no ending only a soft shuffling sound like footsteps leaving the room. You remember their shape by the indistinct outline that still quivers in the air where they used to be. Perhaps this is all poems are: light that disappears once the words are gone You wait for the silence to close its eyes, but it doesn't. It stares back at you, tranquil, limitless, and waits for you to speak.
Paul, this poem moves in a direction I rarely see named.
So much art speaks of change as ascent: rise, growth, breakthrough, some higher room. Your poem walks the other way. It lets the room empty. It lets the light leave. It lets silence keep its eyes open.
And from there, depth arrives.
I keep thinking of this as a kind of subscendence. A going down, inward, closer to the ground of what passes. The poem trusts the vanishing shape. It gives impermanence a body: footsteps, air, light, silence. Nothing gets solved by reaching past it. Meaning gathers because the poem stays where disappearance lives.
The last turn feels especially strong to me. Silence does its own work. It waits. It asks for speech through its stillness. So the poem’s ending becomes less an end than a threshold.
You introduced the concept of subscendence to me, last year, Jay, maybe when I was writing poems for “Beyond These Wounds.” I’ve grown more comfortable with it since then.
Something was there. Creation light, words that exist. Once seen. Now disappeared. Call it quantum electrodynamics. Was the light there? The glacier that left a sound. Perhaps marks. Movement. Believe . Butterfly wing sound , can be heard in China.
although the next line goes on to say "like footsteps leaving the room" this could be so many sounds., many of which I hear in this poem, the multi-layered sounds that are also like footsteps leaving the room.
Good Tuesday, Janie, and thank you for reading and commenting. I like to think that when all the words have been used, in all the ways they can be used, poetry will still be the light, waiting for us to create something new out of the silence that surrounds us.
Thank you for this restack, @Rea de Miranda!
You’re welcome!
Thanks for this restack, @Yolanda D.
Thanks @Blue Citizen 77 for this restack 💙💙
My thanks to @Jane Deegan for restacking this poem.
You're welcome!
Paul, this poem moves in a direction I rarely see named.
So much art speaks of change as ascent: rise, growth, breakthrough, some higher room. Your poem walks the other way. It lets the room empty. It lets the light leave. It lets silence keep its eyes open.
And from there, depth arrives.
I keep thinking of this as a kind of subscendence. A going down, inward, closer to the ground of what passes. The poem trusts the vanishing shape. It gives impermanence a body: footsteps, air, light, silence. Nothing gets solved by reaching past it. Meaning gathers because the poem stays where disappearance lives.
The last turn feels especially strong to me. Silence does its own work. It waits. It asks for speech through its stillness. So the poem’s ending becomes less an end than a threshold.
The room empties, and something larger enters.
Thank you
You introduced the concept of subscendence to me, last year, Jay, maybe when I was writing poems for “Beyond These Wounds.” I’ve grown more comfortable with it since then.
Thank you!
Poetry leaves an imprint on your soul which becomes an impression on your reality.
Poetry does do that, Stan, from Seuss to Eliot.
Yes!
Once it's written, it doesn't belong to us any more.
Set the poems free!
you are damned good, I have to admit it
Thank you, Rob. I keep trying!
The silence never rests…
Words that slowly disappear.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Paul.
Beautiful 💖
Thank you for reading and commenting, Simone, and for your restack!
Glacial soft slushing sound.Sea ice melts.
Memory's shape evaporates. Distant thunder dissipates.
Quivers, arrows plunge deep scars remain speechless.
Something was there. Creation light, words that exist. Once seen. Now disappeared. Call it quantum electrodynamics. Was the light there? The glacier that left a sound. Perhaps marks. Movement. Believe . Butterfly wing sound , can be heard in China.
Everything can be heard in China!
Yes
I that you I hear, Richbee, shuffling through the softness of disappearing light?
"only a soft shuffling sound"
although the next line goes on to say "like footsteps leaving the room" this could be so many sounds., many of which I hear in this poem, the multi-layered sounds that are also like footsteps leaving the room.
I like this so much.
Good Tuesday, Janie, and thank you for reading and commenting. I like to think that when all the words have been used, in all the ways they can be used, poetry will still be the light, waiting for us to create something new out of the silence that surrounds us.
This has such a feel of Eliot.
Thank you, Lev. 🙏😊
The silence never closes its eyes, does it? Brilliant.
Never, Joshua
Thank you for restacking my poem, @Cecilia