May 2022
Bio Note: I am the former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin (2009-10) and of Milwaukee (2004-05). My newest book, Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems, was published by Kelsay Books in December, 2021. I now live in Madison, where I continue to write, teach, and hobnob with the many extraordinary poets who also call Wisconsin home. All of us hope it will have stopped snowing before this issue appears.
Still Lives
Whether or not a species of lower animal can "hear" is often obscured by
the fact that many of them can detect the vibrations of sound waves,
without actually hearing the sound itself.
–Gallaudet University for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing,
Washington DC
This is for the furtive ones,
those creatures who have not
been wired for sound—
the snakes and armadillos, butterflies
and mollusks, worms, octopi
and my own white cat—
living out their lives
in the silence that is their lot—
oblivious to the speech of men,
a loose shutter juddering in the wind,
squalls of rain with cadenzas
of thunder, and the five-note mantra
of mourning doves, crooning the blues.
©2022 Marilyn Taylor
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL