How To Grow Silence...(Revised 2) Poem by RIC BASTASA

there was this place she bragged about
in the hinterland and we had to take a ride
for seven hours from Jakarta and she kept on
talking that it was where

silence is grown and

people who went there once wanted always to come
back

she pictured it:

dinner by the river where lotus
are flowering beside it reeds and
more reeds and
shades of old trees where leaves
fell and floated
on the water which was
so still like a mirror to
the moon

when we arrived there we were so tired
that we
sleep together and food
shall soon be served but
we postponed it

and there with her sleeping
beside me her head
on my shoulder my arms
wrapping her i know what
she means: how to grow silence in
its loveliest form.

it was so
quiet.