Silence is always here - Jaan Kaplinski

Silence is always here and everywhere;
sometimes we simply hear it more clearly:
fog is covering the meadow, the barn door is open,
a redwing is singing over there; a white
moth is circling incessantly around the elm branch;
and the branch itself is still swaying imperceptibly
on the background of the evening sky.
The dusk robs us all of faces and names,
only the difference between light and dark remains.
The heart of a midsummer's night:
the old watch on the desk
is suddenly ticking so terribly loudly.

---

Jaan Kaplinski (born 1941) Estonia
Translated by the author with Fiona Sampson
from: Evening brings everything back