There is a great din in this world

Bellowing and clanging, crashing and banging,

It consumes all voices

Too timid to shout above the clamor.

I was one such timid voice -

I feared make a sound

Or stick my head above ground

Lest my words go unnoticed

In the world’s thunderous tumult.

 

You see, a word can be swallowed

With one gust of wind

It could dip and spin, vanish into thin

Air, as if it had never been.

And the voices around me,

Cyclones of wind,

Joined with the world’s clamor

Until my words turned to birds

That flew away

Never to be heard again.

 

And so I tip-toed through the shouts

That filled me with doubts

About whether my voice

Was strong enough for this world.

I opened my mouth

But only to let out

A sigh.

I raised my hand

But only to grip

The edge of a ship

That sailed me deeper into silence.

 

I stood on the brink

Not daring to move or to think

About whether I’d have to smile and nod

Forever

Instead of speaking my mind.

Wondering whether I’d be thought of as odd

Forever

Because of my too-timid voice

In a world that will rejoice

The screamers.

 

And then, in the silence

Of my own wordlessness

I found a way to speak

Through the din.

I did not shout back

Against the roaring ruckus.

I did not scream against

The ugly uproar.

Instead I took the words

Gathered over years

Of silences.

 

I took words of hay

And spun them into gold

And behold; they told

My story of silence.

I wrote them upon quiet parchment

And slipped them into

The world’s chaotic stream.

They dipped and flipped

Merging with the noise.

My words were no longer pushed away

They were finally in the world to stay.

 

So if poetry’s taught me anything

It’s to create my own voice

Amidst the orchestra of chaos

In this world.