This poem listens inward to the stillness found amid sound and movement. Chandeliers, tulips, idle toys, and even the rumble of trains become part of a larger music, sometimes dissonant, sometimes harmonious, but always alive. It is a meditation on pauses, on fleeting silence that makes rhythm perceptible, and on how everyday spaces, like a waiting room or a hall, can hold both noise and quietude in balance.
Rest by Anna G. Raman
There is a misplaced dancer
on the wall. Lights paint
colors on giant glass bowls
anchored to the ceiling. Presently,
the notes set them free.
They float like boats
on the night lake of a lily moon.
The tulips with their leaves
sleep on the seats.
There is a brown rug, a toddler’s
chair -- wooden and empty,
in a corner. There are baskets,
baskets, full of idle toys basking
under the charming chandeliers,
all waiting, as music itself is.
They are sometimes off-key and
the passing trains often blare
their horns. The wheels
on the tracks and the beats of feet
thunder around and above, the instruments
disparate yet tied somehow
as they come and go
with the ebbing of Beethoven’s Joy,
and suddenly they all pause,
together,
and I still feel the inert rhythms,
the heartbeats of a short-lived silence.
on the wall. Lights paint
colors on giant glass bowls
anchored to the ceiling. Presently,
the notes set them free.
They float like boats
on the night lake of a lily moon.
The tulips with their leaves
sleep on the seats.
There is a brown rug, a toddler’s
chair -- wooden and empty,
in a corner. There are baskets,
baskets, full of idle toys basking
under the charming chandeliers,
all waiting, as music itself is.
They are sometimes off-key and
the passing trains often blare
their horns. The wheels
on the tracks and the beats of feet
thunder around and above, the instruments
disparate yet tied somehow
as they come and go
with the ebbing of Beethoven’s Joy,
and suddenly they all pause,
together,
and I still feel the inert rhythms,
the heartbeats of a short-lived silence.