Warning

What conversation is to be had

With someone like you

Who thinks I’m mad? 

I tell you the festival will end.

So set time aside to spend

Getting to know the silence. 

It will sound, the silence,

Like that time

When your voice falters,

Like that time

When your slow legs alter

The schedule of your day. 

You won’t recall this conversation.

There will be no slow conversion

With the looks of pure aversion

That the young will send your way. 

So take time now to listen:

See how ice on branches glistens

On a crisp, cold winter’s day,

How branches full of flowers sway

In the breeze one fine spring day. 

Hear the cicada cry out its doom

In the heat of a summer afternoon

And the silence when its cry does stall

On a quiet evening in the fall. 

Take time to greet that old man who sits in the park,

Whose eyes will not let him stay out after dark,

Or that old woman tossing crumbs on the ground,

Feeding pigeons, seeing ghosts all around –

For one day time will come, without sound,

To show their faces in the mirror.

What warning could be clearer?

Time to choose which you hold dearer -

The noise and lights and thrills of the carnival

Or that hand on your hand when you’ve been left by all.