Silence Poem by Veena Shankar Kunnath

The teacher to a disciplined sage,
The best friend to every recluse,
The cocoon surrounding the womb divine,
An enchantress waiting to seduce.

An ally found in the dead of night,
When struck with the spark of ingenuity,
It hovers, hypnotises, holds aside the fear paralysing,
Of the work turning into obscurity.

For the brave at heart, silence is a release,
With no grasp however of the passing number
Of hours, minutes spent on repetitive, restless thinking.
An innocent lullaby to a peaceful slumber.

On weaker nights however, the hush turns deafening.
Dissecting life pitiable, bit by hideous bit,
A mind sadistic turned against its own.
Time spent staring at the ceiling, your eyebrows knit.

Silence can twist around your body
Like a climber on a tree- sturdy and green,
Reaching out to those untouched corners,
Unsettling the dust, you were not yet ready to clean.

The momentary pause in your voice,
The hesitation before the sigh,
Paint a picture you may with your words colourful,
But your silences do not lie.

You may be identified
by the cacophony of noise
you splurge through the day,
You are defined, however,
by the things you choose not to say.