Rugged Silence [by Lera Auerbach]

Personal Mythology - Acrylic on Wood Board -  by Lera Auerbach

 

I love old rugs. 

Rugs with animals, flowers, and small people. 

Prayer rugs and large entrance rugs. 

Rugs with dragons and monkeys. 

Tiger-rugs. 

Yes, especially tiger-rugs.

 

One day I will buy a house 

and fill it with old rugs. 

I'll put rugs everywhere on the floors. 

And on the walls too.

And, perhaps, even on the ceiling. 

 

I will lie down on a rug and listen. 

The silence of a room covered in rugs is very different 

from the silence of a room with naked floors. 

I will listen to the rugged silence for such a long time 

that I too become part of it. 

I will shrink and disappear into the rug, 

becoming one of its tiny people.

 

I will jump from rug to rug, 

meeting its wondrous animals, 

befriending a dragon, 

fighting with a tiger. 

One day, one of the flowers in the rug 

will swallow me whole, 

and something would change in the silence, 

it would gain an extra stitch. 

(The silence, not the rug.)

 

Comments

[Emily Fragos]

A wondrous poem of the imagination, silence, isolation, and surprises. A poem with witty plays on words. A poem that is both light and heavy, that unfolds like lines of music. Where will it take us? My favorite line: "Rugs with animals, flowers,
and small people." I adore those small people in their rugged kingdom! I'd like to go there, too.

[Grace Cavalieri]

I don't know which I like better: the poem or the visual. I keep returning to both.
The poem is so tender and comforting, but the visual speaks to my love of the terrain.

[joanna c. mgdal]

am loving all the whimsy in this poem: '..even on the ceiling" and 'becoming one of its tiny people' and 'befriending a dragon' I think reading this to a child would be wondrous!