Nocturne by Lisel Mueller Sometimes, in the dead of night, I wake up in an immense hole of silence. Then I wait, with hope and dread, for the first sound to drop into it. Hope for something benign: the soothing background music of rain, or an owls throaty signal. Dread of a wailing siren, or the telephone, which at this hour could bring me only a thick, demented voice, or the impersonal speech issuing from some desk of disaster. Last night, when it came, it was a sound of blessing, the rough-and-tumble bumping-together of freight cars in the switchyard down the road--that simple, artless coupling, and a long time later, the drawn-out, low-voiced hum of the train rolling down the single track. Sounds of work, of confidence in the night, in getting from here to there. Sounds of connection; sweet music. I lay there and listened to the moonless night fill up with sound until the darkness throbbed with a dream of arrival.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 02:33:29 +0000
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