Husshhh … Listen!

Husshhh … Listen!
Can you hear it?

Can you hear
The sound of the wings
Of a bird
Soaring high
In the shimmering sky
Plummeting
Down … down … to the ground?

Can you hear
The butterfly lingering
In the chill sun
Flitting from flower to flower
Sipping the sweet nectar
Of life
Dying
With a silent scream
Its iridescent wings fading
In a smothered dream?

Can you hear
The sound of the verdant earth
Drinking the green of life
Turning into bone white
Dry dust?
The sound of a teardrop
Trembling on the tender tip
Of another day, another sun
Choked
In a winter’s grief?
The sound of the stars
Blazing in the night sky
Extinguished
One by one by one?

You’d think the sky would rant and rage
All it does is watch mute and dumb
Like a trapped scream
In a gilt cage
And a shooting star streaks
Across the face
Of the sobbing moon
While the sound of the footsteps
Of Night approaches
Like toxic fumes
Softly, stealthily
Sly as death

Listen …
Listen to the sound
Of a flower curling
Slowly
Back into a twisted bud
Can you hear it?
The sound of poems
Never to be written
As I walk along
The razor edge
Of life?

Husshhh … Listen
Listen to the butterfly’s dying scream
Its glittering wings
Quivering in a bloodstained dream

-by Rita Putatunda