(For We Know Silence Already)

You tell me that silence
Is closer to God, than poetry
Who am I to disagree –
The best words have always been inner
Like empathy, breathless & unsaid
.
You tell me that silence
Is nearer to your heart than your writing
Though you write from a truer
Place than I do, I can feel
The peace in your few aching words
But I can bring your silence
.
It’s built in my calm, my meditation
Before I had a voice, a body, a life
I was a gift of silence, unborn –
You hand my poems back to me
With a slow smile and I retreat
.
Back into the silence of our
Shared understanding, it’s sweeter
There, than before – when all
I was, were poems strewn across the floor.