A Silence Song

So much silence Stretching above me Around me too Has it deafened me? Has it closed my ears? Has the silence itself brought about this rapture? Between silence and sound Between the cry and the cull If man raises one voice I'll raise two then One for loss One for losing One for death and one for birth I may hang bloody-torn On this tree of moss Though my grimace Cuts my grin I'll rise triumphant I'll rise triumphing You won't catch me I fly unseen Through the wind of the worlds Missiles cut space Spearing the starlight Masking the moon Wide of the march Give me two reasons to stay here Lost light, lost love Smudge the tracks And smother the traces Of the fires Of your fear Near the Under the Beside the Beyond the flowers Then further still The children lie in silent space Wind shivers through Their corn-burnt hair Silence immaculate If they move From silence to sound Will the world shudder? Will my heart stop? In a cave, in her maze The spring slides Through my sadness And my winter The stars have now frozen into space The stars have molten into space The children wait Flowers around Burnish their hair With brazen gold And heart-red rose If I move, then I shall stop How have the sightless fallen I'll shall take a knife to your heart I'll take a knife to your heart I'll- I'll take a knife to your- to your heart And London Bridge no longer remains Christ's face refracted through the sky Then cuts up into different shapes