There’s No Quiet in Her Silence

unless you consider the wail
of a glacier as it splits down
the middle under the shimmer
of Aurora Borealis, the crack
of lightning striking the crook
of a branch so thick it creaks
and crackles on its slow fall
to the ground it immediately
begins to burn, or the groan
of ice crystals as they shove
a pebble from a mountainside
and the stampede of boulders
that roar against its absence
as sounds so soft they fade
like the hush of exhausted lovers –
lingering and panting in the dark.

This is a reprint of work originally published in Prism Review.

Danny Earl Simmons lives in Lebanon, Oregon. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals such as The Pedestal Magazine, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, IthacaLit, and San Pedro River Review. He is the author of a poetry chapbook entitled The Allness of Everything (Maverick Duck Press).