The Waiting

Silence has no zen today.
Ambient freeway noise
from ? mile away,
the occasional Friday nighter
coming home 2:00 a.m. Saturday,
the appliances with two-tone hums,
the bumping and grinding
of an old swamp cooler,
a distant train,
forces what has been pushed back
to break through.

My father needs O 2
all the time now.
His innocence
in countering the surgeons’ truth
with his wishes and beliefs
stabs me in the heart
with love
while his every movement
is pain.

He says he is ready
but I feel his fear.

The hum of the universe
is machine noise,
a motor with it’s timing off.

I meditate on this:
silence is a whistle,
a din in the wind,
in the dark.