The Quiet of No Computers

by Rob Faivre, faculty

The quiet of no computers The quiet of electricity The quiet of snowy streets under streetlights at 5 AM, unplowed streets, the little circles, the spheres and cones of sifted light The quiet of unlocked doors and locked doors alike The quiet of someone sleeping in the other room The quiet of the upstairs neighbor's dog, settled on his blankets The quiet of the small city before sunrise, clerks and baristas, bakers and dishwashers, cops and yoga teachers The quiet of imminent commerce and all its disquiet The quiet of a far-off train between crossings The quiet of the interstate, no doubt with commuters tuning their satellite radios, no doubt with truckers rolling 18 wheels and heavy loads in the center lane The quiet of ports and shipping containers, the quiet of the ocean, its depths, its varied and rising surface The quiet of Antarctica, between icefall, glaciers about to calve icebergs The quiet of icebergs the size of Connecticut The quiet of lost whales, ghost ships, plastic islands The quiet of jets overhead, pilots and passengers sensing sunrise and specific destinations The quiet of satellites, orbiting debris, space stations, moons The quiet of Mars, the fading rings of Saturn, the probe at Ultima Thule The quiet of my own bloodstream, brainstem, bowels The quiet of Walt Whitman, Adrienne Rich, Budbill, Ikkyu, Gibran, Neruda, Rukeyser, other chroniclers of quiet and disquiet The quiet at the end of these lines