Their Names

Like a rain I feel but cannot see,
the names of the dead, falling.

Silences I hear between
first names, middle, last

are slivers of empty air between
lines of rain. I want

to be in these tiny silences
that cannot hold their deaths

but join them to all silence —
rests in a piece of music,

the quiet beneath a rock,
the feather on a crow,

beak closed, wings
perfectly still.

From Talking Underwater, Wind Publications, 2007. Posted by kind permission of the poet.