A poem by Karen Wolf

Silence takes us beneath a berry bush
to view field mice sleeping with milk-filled tummies.
It surrounds a barn owl diving toward prey,
grabbing a toad before it hears a sound.
It muffles giggles, prolonging a game of Hide-and-Go-Seek
way past the street-light-coming-on curfew.
Silence uncovers our ears, letting us distinguish between
sloughing wind sounds through pine trees
from shushing leaf-clapping maples.
It enables a friend to hear heartache
and offer a hug.
Silence opens our hearts to a man in a reflective vest
peddling a three-wheeled bike,
letting us feel his pride of independence.
It quiets early morning air,
revealing scratching sounds of scrabbling raccoons
chasing around a telephone pole.
Silence takes us on new paths.

Karen Wolf has an undergraduate degree in education from the University of Toledo and a Master of Arts degree from Bowling Green State University. She has retired from a 30-year teaching career and is semi-retired from her own pet-sitting company. She has been published in Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Dime Store Review, Tree House: An Exhibition of the Arts, The Wagon Magazine (an international publication), Oasis Journal, and Artificium: The Journal. She also received the E.E. Cummings Free Verse award and the Creative Challenge Award from PRIZM Art-A-Fair 2016. She says that poetry “soothes the savage beast” and opens her eyes to the beauty that abounds within the world.