Two Silent People, Dying Poem by RIC BASTASA

you are silent
more silent than the stars above us
this mountain of
sorrow does not know the songs of sighs
it is as silent
as you
more silent than all the stars above us

i join you in this silence and i take a journey far from you
my thoughts are wings and they will not use words as vehicles
from my mouth there will be no sound too

what are we contemplating for? i ask myself.
you think of death, i know, but you have not guessed what i am thinking
i am tired of death, let it come when it comes,

i am thinking of those tiny things in my life
how they happen, how time flies too fast
and i am here with you left behind it like a hundred years

i go back to thinking about us bathing in the river
since we do not know how to swim we take hold of a driftwood
from nowhere

it teaches us how to swim
that driftwood from nowhere
and it is when that driftwood left us
that we struggle for our life
and then we have learned
how to drift, ultimately how to swim

we are here in the middle of this silent struggle
it is when it hurts best that we begin to learn how to think
how to think well more than the rest of those
who are not conscious of the shortness of the time left

it is here in the middle of our sorrow
that we become more intelligent, wisdom sprouts and grows
into a tree
in our heads, and we are soon carried to a height
where we see them all
away from us.