POEMS
John Hollander
MARKS AND NOISES
Potters, in the stark childhood of our writing,
Scratched the bent letters they could hardly use
As the shadows of voice yet over their cups
And urns for decorative purposes.
Long afterwards, abandoned alphabets
Which could not stand for language any more–
The disused runes, the dark, square Hebrew letters
Adrift in Christendom, shriveled to mere
Magic, and long since silenced hieroglyphs–
Faded into pictures of mysteries .
o
letters! 0 domestic ghosts! the spectres
Of dead speech, they rise up about me now
From stillborn sounds laid out on this lined sheet.
o
sounds of the darkened sky! Far across Long
Island Sound and its thrum of winds and waters
There drift toward me ghosts of the ancient dead
Sight of you, standing long once in your hair.
HUSH!
A touch of the hand - say, of my forefinger
To your lips, not cautioning as you might me,
But quietly exemplary - can give all
But voice to silence without breaking it.
