First thought of the day

Crawl out of bed
           peer out the window
first dusting of light
           on all I see
but I see with memory
           as much as with my eyes
the different complexities
           of silence 
sometimes a comfort sometimes not
           as I imagine in the trenches
where my grandfathers fought
           and the poet asks
how long is a rest
           in music
and I ask
           how long is this silence
and what does it portend
           and is it a beginning
or is it the end
           of a fragmentary process
the silence of innocence
           or of culpability
and will I one day
           be a bird bereft of song ?

John Lyons