The Answer

You have spoken the answer.
 A child searches far sometimes
 Into the red dust
             On a dark rose leaf
 And so you have gone far
             For the answer is:
                         Silence.

   In the republic
 Of the winking stars
             and spent cataclysms
 Sure we are it is off there the answer
     is hidden and folded over,
 Sleeping in the sun, careless whether
     it is Sunday or any other day of
     the week,

 Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.

 Have we not seen
 Purple of the pansy
         out of the mulch
         and mold
         crawl
         into a dusk
         of velvet?
         blur of yellow?

 Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,
         the future,
         working.

Published in Chicago Poems

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