The Dreamtime: Steven

What the Dog Perhaps Hears...is a Gift from Hannah

If an inaudible whistle blown between our lips can send him home to us, then silence is perhaps the sound of spiders breathing and roots mining the earth; it may be asparagus heaving, headfirst, into the light and the long brown sound of cracked cups, when it happens. We would like to ask the dog if there is a continuous whir because the child in the house keeps growing, if the snake really stretches full length without a click and the sun breaks through clouds without a decibel of effort, whether in autumn, when the trees dry up their wells, there isn’t a shudder too high for us to hear. What is it like up there above the shut-off level of our simple ears? For us there was no birth cry, the newborn bird is suddenly here, the egg broken, the nest alive, and we heard nothing when the world changed. ~Lisel Mueller