Contentious Dialogue

If the broken timbre of an old man’s voice Irritates you, try surviving the screech

Of a prairie fence in winter. You say you Can’t quiet the clattering rack of katydids

Or bent abrasions of bullfrogs in a pond. What if you were a bat in an ultrasound

Cave or the engineer whose train crushed The family that didn’t hear the whistle?

Sometimes we say we don’t understand Math when A=πr² circles past. Yet

We easily grasp the loss of birdsong When water falls from a thousand feet.

What do we listen to when we don’t like What we hear? Silence? Try this.

The pickling of bones in a sunken Trawler. Elliptical connections between

Muses. The mute epiphany of a monk. Is it tranquility you really want, the end

Of contentious dialogue, the sputtering Ricochets of too many eternal voices?

We could, if you choose, just seal The clackety-clack in padded minds

And lament our way to the end. Or, We could move closer to the old man,

Take his hand, let him talk into the night About days when music was all there was

And his wife’s iron lung, its whisper Like gods quarreling among themselves.