Scrawled Silence Poem by David Lewis Paget

Too often in this gaping land
I’ve wandered helpless, like some man
Whose art was squandered in the drought,
Bereft within, burnt dry without
Both parched and strangled, word and deed
Cast out from hope, embraced by need
Exiled from all that beauty saw
And lost to all I knew before.

Small wonder, then, that nature’s call
Excites me less or not at all,
That harsh intrigues of leaflessness
And trees grotesque intrigue me less.
This brown and barren artistry
Calls forth some emptiness in me
To whisper all that sadness seems
And leave scrawled silence in sad dreams.

7 September 1976