A sip of silence

I missed it so deeply I forgot its taste.
May it come, that I may drink until I fade.
What would I not have given for a sip of silence?
I would have surrendered my entire lifeless life.

While the world became a circus of shouting noise,
an abundance of stimuli without notice,
a loveless clamor without cease,
what could I long for but a handful of peace?

It would have stilled the storms within me,
and the cries of babies beyond me.
It would have taught humanity the worth of solitude,
lest it be consumed by its own rumble.

The ancient days would return in remembrance,
the time before existence learned to make noise.
The day before birth would be our reprieve,
the time before civilization was built to preserve noise.

To live is to occupy sacred space,
to disturb the stillness of the universe.
Every living thing is a chatterer, for sure.
Forever wanting, they are never at cosmic peace.

Then highest is the one
who taught the world the worth of suffering through acceptance,
who silenced every restless tongue without revenge,
who made the deaf aware and awake.

I have imagined it for more than a decade.
I no longer remember when it overtook me.
My eyes search only for its presence.
My dreams hold nothing else.

I was abandoned among the blind horde.
My soul felt only the aching absence.
A sip of silence was my only plea.
Even that was denied to me.

― Atrona Grizel