Stop Singing - Mount Eerie

the possibility that if I stopped clapping

my hands in the void

I would notice that I can’t hold on to things

and

the possibility that if I stopped using my voice

I would notice songs that, all around me, sing

looms in weather,

lives buried in my days,

with all my songs and rhythms going like

the darkness surrounding a flame.

It’s what I don’t say with my mouth.

It’s my mouth open

to breathe in.

It’s open windows.

Still, I go on and on describing the shape

around the thing I want to but can not name,

in song

and, though my long life feels busy

and full of usefulness and drive,

I will sleep through every single dawn

and those I see I will not understand though I try

I will sing through every single song

about the spaces left when we stop singing

and I will sing this

with longing.