It is the age of chatter,
seven billion beings intent on staying current,
in the game of status tag and did you know,
no one wants the small change of social currency,
no one wants to be the last to hear.
Addicted to instant updates,
dedicated to being in touch and instant answers,
success measured in connections and the diameter of social circles.
To the point of arrays of robot ears tuned
for signs from among the stars.
Intelligence?

Out of the daily twenty-thousand words we
utter, mutter, call out,
in the thirty-eight centuries of time used each day (on skype alone),
out of one-hundred billion messages,
amid the chaff of polite and politic,
among all the useless husks of worn out phrases,
almost lost in the gabble of auto-response, postured poses,
practiced rants and raves,
clear channels open
and through them,
like messages whispered in a bottle and cast adrift,
cards tucked between the pages of a book,
prayers written on foggy windows
I say,

you are for me
the way
shadows usher in the light
rests give melody her flow
past and future twine

in silence thought is forged
and in you I find
a quality of silence as
beneath snow laden boughs of spruce,
in the lee between the crests of waves,
in the breath before the rains first come

I wake at night
to listen for your breath,
in that message is all I need to hear