The Geography of Silence
1. Laundry drooping at midday.
2. She dreams off-key, in pastels.
3. With misunderstanding comes anger.
4. Mata! Mata! Again!
5. Ashes crossing the ocean.
6. Sweat, and the taste of separation.
7. Reaching for past moons, she cries.
8. Death’s shade.
9. Rice.
10. Self-sacrifice, the centered gift.
11. Inward, always. Inward.
“The Geography of Silence” first appeared here in March 2016.
O at the Edges 
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
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Thanks for reblogging!
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This is really moving. I can hear your Mom’s voice in the “Mata!”. What a beautiful expression of love and loss and memory and the passing of time. 深遠…
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OK I admit it. The “Mata, Mata!” made me a little misty in the ocular regions…
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You old softy…thank you. The highest compliment.
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Your mother and her generation were a special bunch. To make the life choices they did in the face of so many opposing forces is a testament to their ferocious dreams. We won’t see their like in the world again (a deep bow and gassho to her…).
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I don’t know that I could have made the same choices. She was very strong!
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Cho-tsuyoi desu ne!
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Though I was mostly a well behaved child (we won’t mention those teen years), I still managed to raise her ire on occasion. 😊
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Considering the genes and cultures you inherited from you parents, of course a young Okaji Sensei would have a fire in his belly at some time and for some reason. You don’t forge steel with velvet!
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I think I was just an obnoxious, hormone-addled teen who lacked much in the way of common sense.
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What? A teen that lacked wisdom?? I can’t believe it! 🙂
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Yeah, go figure.
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As for me, of course I was perfectly well behaved and civil and read philosophy while drinking tea… and definitely not going wild with saxophones and illicit whiskey gatherings and cigarettes with the Catholic girls behind the local CYO… nope, not me! I as wise when I was 15!
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Well, of course!
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lovely. Lightheaded: Retiring at 8300 feet
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Thank you.
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Your titles contain worlds in themselves. (K)
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Thanks, Kerfe. I consider titles to be part of the poems, and as thus they should bear a share of the burden.
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This is beautiful. You’ve said so much in few words, well chosen.
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Thank you, Kate.
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Uncannily beautiful, friend! This poem seems so familiar to me : )
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I’m so pleased you find it so. Thank you.
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❤️
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Thank you, David!
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Lovely . . .
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Thanks, Luanne!
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As you have been told by others, great piece! Loved it, Robert!
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Thank you, Fiza. Much appreciated.
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#6.
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And the title. They held me.
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Thanks, Carolin. I don’t recall which came first, the title or the poem.
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Every line ever written, and every line that will be written, all swim in the sea of the creative subconscious. As writers we fish them out and arrange them in an order that we hope expresses new meaning. As long as they end up in the banquet does it matter in which order they were caught in our net?
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In the end, no. But sometimes it’s interesting to follow the path, such as it is.
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