A Second Poem For Erin, On Her Birthday: The Silence Poem by Dennis Ryan

"I don't know how to say it/needing a word with no sound"
—George Oppen, "Two Romance Poems"

Erin, I don't know exactly what to say,
or how to say it, but may my love speak to you,
to that deepest, funniest, most indestructible part of you
that no one else can share.Ever.
You are inviolate.Wasn't it just last night
I wrote another poem for you? It was Christmas.
The snow was falling, and you read the thing
while lying on the livingroom couch.
You pronounced it good.It all keeps in memory.
In the silence.Nothing can measure up to it.
The silence waits, waits there, always wanting to be used.
My friend Bill once wrote a poem about wanting to keep everything -
the grass, the water, the trees too.
You know.he didn't want anything to change -
like everybody else.Finally, only the silence stayed.
Bill made me realize that the silence is the best place,
the best foil, the best opening and shelter.
It's where the first poem lives, and now this one.
The silence made me listen, and listen, and listen for you.
Not for sounds.Not for words.But for feelings.
It didn't say, it didn't say, it felt.
Then finally, almost magically, this poem came,
and spoke through me.