Poetry
Kristine Nowak
Meeting Room, Shaker Village
Meeting Room, Shaker Village
If sound echoes, then it must echo forever—softer with each iteration, the more delicatethe ear needed to catch it.
In every place where there wassinging and dancing and stompingthere must be some faint
reverberationthat gets closer to silence,but never reaches it.
The room where they sangis all clean benches now,a great stage of empty
and gleaming floor,windows that cast rivers of sunacross the barren wood.
I could swearthere is nothing here—not even ghosts.
But, somewhere under this veneerof silence, there must be dozensof voices pounding to song,
there must be heavy footfallsthat shake these same windows.There must be more
than these lone lines of lightand shadow tracking timeacross the floor.
In every place where there wassinging and dancing and stompingthere must be some faint
reverberationthat gets closer to silence,but never reaches it.
The room where they sangis all clean benches now,a great stage of empty
and gleaming floor,windows that cast rivers of sunacross the barren wood.
I could swearthere is nothing here—not even ghosts.
But, somewhere under this veneerof silence, there must be dozensof voices pounding to song,
there must be heavy footfallsthat shake these same windows.There must be more
than these lone lines of lightand shadow tracking timeacross the floor.