Stop Singing

(album: "No Flashlight": Songs Of The Fulfilled Night - 2005)

The possibility that if I stopped clapping
My hands in the void
I would notice that I can't hold on to things
And the possibility that if I stopped bellowing my voice in the void
I would notice songs that all around me sing
Looms in weather
Lives buried in my days
With all my songs and rhythms going
Like the darkness surrounding a flame
It's what I don't say with my mouth
It's my mouth opening to breathe in
It's open windows in the wall
Still, I go on and on describing the shape
Around the thing I want to but can not name
I go on and on in song
After song
After song, after song
And, though my long life feels busy
And full of usefulness and drive
I will sleep through every single dawn
And those I see I will not really understand
I will sing through every single song
About the spaces left when we stop singing
And I will do this with longing