A Thousand Words Poem by Mira Midha

I would still like to talk to you….
And silence answered,
‘I have nothing to say that can be heard,
But in my quietness I say a thousand words.'
There is a depth in the flavour
Of ‘no speak' that is spoken,
And that lingers a little,
Sometimes a lot,
In soundless volumes that are awoken.

An old man sits in a lost,
His eyes behold mine,
He is too proud to beg,
But his silence is heard,
His fathomless stare speak a thousand words.

A haunting hum of an inert night,
Penury in slumber,
Shrouded along road sides,
Canine and being in bonded sleep,
Theirs is an untold story
In silence and weep,
A buried shout is heard,
And a pavement speaks a thousand words.

A widow in white, tonsured head,
Defeated in this hollow of a drugged clique
Where she had wed,
A crying soul it does not speech,
Oblivious to her stifle
To be heard,
Her eyes speak a thousand words.

Yet silence I read
Is a language of the wise,
Who seek within and not in rise,
But such a silence is by choice
In not to be heard,
And muteness is a language
That speaks a thousand words.



A silence of a shadow,
A silence of despair,
A silence of stupor,
A silence of prayer,
Is louder than
The noise of atrocious discord,
The noise of tyrannical loud,
The noise of perverse apathy,
The noise of an obscene crowd.
And courage it takes
To be in such a silence
That is felt yet not heard,
And in that a story
Speaks a thousand words.