I sit in bed reading.
I pause for a while
and notice the complete silence
that enshrouds me.
I search inside me
to understand how I feel.
A smile grows on my face.
There is no one there.
No man no woman no animal.
Not real not imagined.
There is light flooding
Out of my bedside lamp.
There is an occasional tram
Rumbling quietly on the main street.
To smile unto silence
Unto a space void of other life
A smile unacknowledged, unreturned,
Unknown to anyone else, unasked for.
Yet one that I understand the most.
For the chance to smile such a smile,
I thank my all encompassing solitude.
This is the place inside me
Where I want to return to. A home.
Where no other human need enter
Where no sorrow is too much that
I fail to grasp the need to last.
Where I can be, and my being is enough.
Birthing a verse, only a perk.
I meet that smile only occasionally,
But I know that it is not new.
It is a relic as old as me,
From decades back in time.
From the times that I learnt
That I am sufficient
For the world that is me.
Several breaths later, after a poem,
The smile lingers on my lips.
The most gentle expression of my love
To the only thing that I really have.
My self. My beautiful, audacious,
Unbelievably tenacious
Self.
Cover Photography – ‘Skies of Hannover, Georgengarten’, Own
Alleys 