A Hundred Silences

"A Hundred Silences"
By Gabeba Baderoon

Light is receding like heat from the day.
Under his hands, the ground feels warmer than the air.
He has been in the small garden since returning
from work, weeding. It is a word for being alone.

He loosens the grip of the soil with a trowel,
tugs then eases out the plants
with their threading roots.
Time lengthens, enters the ground.
The sun sinks
behind the garage early in the afternoon.
Shadows narrow and slide against the grass,
up the wall, soft and anonymous.

Geese fly overhead towards the mountain,
the downward beat of their wings marking
the place where the distance ends,
like a sheet touching skin.

The weeds become shape and grain in the dusk.
Any moment a voice will call through the window.
He will not finish this today. He rises
and walks to the garage to store the trowel.

Across the wall, hundreds of birds
come to settle in the neighbor's plum tree,
twitting and jabbing and rustling
then, on a breath, quiet.

He hears a hundred silences fall,
break and fall again.