The Quiet Martyr Poem by James Whitworth

The wind-blown chorus company enough
When silence to the throne of sound ascends;
Resident in the space that voice vacates.
While its shadows converge and smoke pretends,

The night sky recites the constellations
And we beneath its mysteries proceed,
Hiding from the geometric sun, since,
Unpunished, so they say, goes no good deed.

Before that sullen sun chooses to rise
To save once more its earth from drowning dew,
Those circles who chose quiet mourn the loss
Of one more midnight friend who ever knew

The common portrait of his fury’s reign
Has Death, with precious dawn beside him raped,
Though never in such nearness will be seen
The final face of him we shan’t escape.