Ode to Almost-Silence

by Marjorie Maddox


Praise to the door clicking shut,
to absence warming up the room,

but not completely: fireplace flame still
spitting its lazy opinions, radiator

humming its calm, the floorboard’s creak
letting you know it’s still there

but won’t interrupt like the brash
morning jazz your husband plays

before coffee opens the ears
to thought and conversation.

Here: the louder hush of outside world
kept out—wind, occasional cat,

an emergency (not yours)
begging for someone else

to run, or fix, or bark commands
that can’t break into this cordoned-off

zone of chosen contemplation—
where, sometimes, even now, you hear

the memory of waves, the scratch
of sole on sand, the swirl of shells, and even

your chin lifting into salty air
as you listen not for the lost

and gone, but for what is
there and here inside

the ear and the empty
house, not empty after all.


* * * * *

"Ode to Almost-Silence" was previously published in The Grotto and Heart Beats and is forthcoming in the author’s book Seeing Things (Wildhouse, 2024). The author retains all rights.

Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? (Kelsay); Seeing Things (Wildhouse); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (w/Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (w/Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work and others. is forthcoming. She also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and two anthologies (co-editor), and is assistant editor of Presence and host of Poetry Moment www.marjoriemaddox.com