“The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.” — T S Eliot
Like an ocean wave,
a fleeting thing of beauty in the breeze,
wild like the sky on a windy day,
hinting at hidden depth too vast to know,
love’s silent whisper seems written in the wind,
while every moment
is life’s expression of itself,
an eternal jazz becoming biochemistry,
consciousness becoming dreams
and moments to remember,
the sudden laughter heard
through the open window of a nearby room,
the glance reflected briefly in the window of a train,
the times we found the silence and the mystery
with those who shared our life,
experiences woven somehow
into everything that is.
And when we met that day near the ocean,
with the bluegreen swell
windblown into endless shifting motions,
we looked into each other’s eyes,
a wordless moment, a silence filled with meaning
with nothing left unsaid, nothing left unknown,
something almost inexpressible,
seemed to bring some clarity and wisdom,
a song of silence and eternity known like love is known,
known like we know beauty,
something essential to our life, yet somehow
hidden from our gaze,
realized only in those moments
that so lift our heart
they become somehow part of us,
somehow woven through us,
somehow who we are.
Something hidden
in the moments dissolving
like footsteps on a windy, snowy road,
the moments gone like shadows in a mist
even while they touched our heart,
the silence somewhere deep inside us,
helping us know what those in love
will sometimes know and cannot say,
the beauty in every moment
happens only now,
the hidden poetry of love
somehow touching all our lives,
weaving all experience through everything that is
while time just slips away,
and as I look out at the sky
across the rooftops of South London
where seagulls shriek and play in the early morning sky,
a conscious silence always just beyond
any word I could ever say,
reveals the meaning of the moments shared,
the moments disappearing
like the wind that sighs
through nearby trees
and through my heart.
© Paul Mulliner 2024
If you enjoyed this, you can discover more of my poetry on Medium here:
I’m a writer and designer based in London, writing about life, the fleeting experiences of living, intuition, silence, consciousness …
With thanks to the Editors of The Howling Owl
