Today's NaPoWriMo assignment is to write a poem incorporating the sounds of home. I am sobered by the difficulty of this assignment:
So much is silence.
by Shirley Smith Franklin
Father's at work, left before I am awake.
My brothers were off to school before me.
I shiver into chilly clothes, chilly
because we live up north. Mother, always busy,
already in the sewing room, kisses me good-by.
I must've eaten something for breakfast,
but... fade into the scene behind our house...I'm
skipping, the radio tune of 'The Musical Clock'
rings in my ears as I pass the neighbor's house.
This dark brick house, now dark, once might have been
ever ready to host or shelter as need be,
now never visited, never entered, no such need.
The neighbor herself, lonely, old, sitting alone,
on a folding metal chair in her back yard, was
scraping long hairs that grew from the backs of her hands.
'Why are you doing that, doesn't it hurt?' I asked.
'Because it won't look nice,' her reply.
So much is silence.
by Shirley Smith Franklin
Father's at work, left before I am awake.
My brothers were off to school before me.
I shiver into chilly clothes, chilly
because we live up north. Mother, always busy,
already in the sewing room, kisses me good-by.
I must've eaten something for breakfast,
but... fade into the scene behind our house...I'm
skipping, the radio tune of 'The Musical Clock'
rings in my ears as I pass the neighbor's house.
This dark brick house, now dark, once might have been
ever ready to host or shelter as need be,
now never visited, never entered, no such need.
The neighbor herself, lonely, old, sitting alone,
on a folding metal chair in her back yard, was
scraping long hairs that grew from the backs of her hands.
'Why are you doing that, doesn't it hurt?' I asked.
'Because it won't look nice,' her reply.
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