Natural Sfx Poem by Andrew Burke

for Geoff Page

Standing at the edge of
the Western Desert,
minus 2 degrees Celsius,
I listen for
silence. Moon late,
campers asleep,

fires out, I hear
a distant road train
kicking up red dirt

like a country & western song
when all you want is
the white space between

church bells tolling.
Frogs listen too
between the lap-

slapping of
Niagara Dam's hundred-year-old
waters on

red rock shores. It's
as close as I'll ever hear to
hearing nothing,

like Basho atop
an old craggy mountain.
Charles Tomlinson writes

'it rings true: for
silence / is an imagined
thing.' Listen