Hardened Silence Of Walls... Poem by RIC BASTASA

you are in new york
reading me like you were
a psychic
and i wrote a lot of
anything
in that far far sky
without stars
and you start the guess
and ask some questions
with a premise
you know i have known him for
years
he is one kind of a guy
who works hard for his future
kind and gentle
and finds no trouble at all
but with his kind of writing now
what is actually happening?
had he gone mad? had he changed for the
worst?
did he forget to pray?
did he lose his God?
what is going in this world?
(she is sick with cancer and
i keep on praying too for her
to survive)
and there she is the psychic
deciphering me too in those words
and ideas,
forgetting what air is
what clouds are
what rivers once were
ah, the trees are still there
in the forests of our minds
sounds of crickets and songs of birds
and the surges of the seas
and the never ending hushes of the sands
the arrival of waves
the blank faces of rocks
the whispering winds
the chimes on the beams
the strength of those walls
engulfed by their own hardened silence.