Tuesday Poem: The fall of silence, by Sue Fitchett

The fall of silence

today the silence makes me listen
my pulse ticks

someone reminds me it’s the ninth day
of the ninth month of the ninth year

kowhai buds come out a month early
kereru plunder them

unopened buds pop pop
onto the deck

five kereru perch on a wattle
side by side back to back mute as always

I reach for the phone to call you
never seen so many together

at one time on one tree
my finger stays still

they sit I sit
in this eye of silence

a memory comes uninvited
my mother passes tea cups to

visitors who watch the view
our bay’s natural sound shell

fallen
silent

the shaking starts
bone china in my mother’s hand

rattles like knucklebones
momentarily caught in a fist


© sue fitchett

Waiheke Island poet Sue fitchett has a new collection of poems, "On the Wing" published by Steele Roberts. It will be launched by Sandra Lee at the Waiheke Library, 2 Korora Road from 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm on Saturday 10 May. The above poem is taken from the collection.

Sue says "The collection explores on many levels the relationship between humans and birds, both good and bad; exploring presence and absence, falling and rising, hellos and goodbyes, taking off,, flying and landing and has subtext about women and birds plus 'conversations' with the images, ideas and writing of the English author of The Peregrine JA Baker."

Each week a new poem is posted at the Tuesday Poem main hub site. Up to thirty bloggers also post Tuesday Poems on their own blogs, and links to these blogs appear in the sidebar of the hub site. I highly recommend making time to visit some of these for a wide selection of poems, both from participants' own work and other poets.