Seven Seconds of Stunned Silence

It’s a timeless moment,

a sharp intake of knowing, a breath of awareness.

The final word comes, either heard or read,

and with it the resolution of a thought

which resonates at a tone too deep for humans to hear –                                             

maybe heard only by sperm whales –

but which we can feel, and which we know rings

a truth truer than the truth known before.

My eyes linger at the white space

on the page after the final period –

Or I sit in the quiet after Garrison’s voice

falls away into broadcast silence. 

I stay in that silence.

I stay for a timeless moment,

seven seconds of stunned silence,

in that place where poetry lives.