Here In This Silence, I Poem by Ben Partenay

I like the shops when everyone is gone
the library when no one is reading
the church when nobody is praying
I walk in, tip toe, careful not to disturb

my friend, and it is all a silent poem
a novel about to be written, a blank sheet
a prayer to no god because the soul
is empty, the page is empty, the stores

are empty, this heart is empty, but
in the silence of these, these bits of home
these pieces of life, these desperate
graspings, something in me, shouts