The Whisper

4 Comments

  • MayaReid
  • has a new blog. If you want to learn more about her, check out www.afrodisisaccordingtome.blogspot.com

Poem Commentary

This is a response to Simon Armitage's "The Shout".

...My first assignment for my Creative Writing class.

The Whisper

If a tree falls in the forest and

No one’s around to hear it,

Does it still make a sound?

When you whispered under your breath

And hoped to hell I couldn’t hear,

Did that make the words disappear?

No. Every leaf on every branch of every

Tree in that forest shook, so

You can stop pretending now,

Your words, they still shake me.

Mama always said, ‘Watch yo’ mouth,’

And Dad, you always told me to think before I speak,

So if child may play parent for a moment,

I want to remind you, Dear Daddy, that even though

Your lips can move faster than your brain,

You and I and everyone we know has to live with

Those supposed-to-be-silent words every day.

They can be heard, seen, felt in our every relationship,

Everything we say and all the words we don’t,

The sigh behind my smile.

Tabula rasa—I am marked.

A tree falls in the forest and,

Slowly but surely, wishing it didn’t

Remember, roots like nerves are bared to the world

As the very ground begins to shrink away.

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gmcookie commented on The Whisper

07-03-2010

Wow! Excellent, Maya. Another 10 for this one.....

mamasan commented on The Whisper

11-11-2009

Wow, this is the first time I heard what happened when the tree fell in an isolated forest way out of our earshots. Thank you for letting me listen in and for sure you are a master of a wordsmith.

queendee commented on The Whisper

10-21-2009

Absolutely love your poem! You are agreat writer! Make sure to keep at it you have a special gift

jammaekas commented on The Whisper

10-05-2009

Hi Good day:) A very good insight...What's Tabula Rasa?

MayaReid

10/05/2009

It's a concept I once learned about in a World History class many years ago: that children are born as blank slates, and the people in their lives leave marks all over them, shaping who they'll one day become.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet.

MayaReid’s Poems (129)

Title Comments
Title Comments
A Discourse on Discourse 1
These Things 3
Figures 1
i should tell you 3
Empire State 0
Come Hell or High Water 1
Where Do We Go From Here? 2
Dispersal 0
Let Me Count the Ways 1
I am (or Kujichagulia) 2
Six Degrees of Steparation 1
My Best Friend's Wedding 0
Reflection 0
The Writing on the Walls 0
To My Mother, on Her Fortieth Birthday 2
Drunk Savior 0
Dear Son/Daughter 2
Escape Velocity 2
The Whisper 4
Rocks and Shoeboxes 1
The Day We Almost Kissed 1
Loving and Leaving 0
The String that...Saved Me? 0
The Love of My Life: Take Two 0
The Divorce 0
The Garden of Life 2
Some Things I Know 1
And One for Me? 4
Storms 2
Spider 0
Specks -2
Sorrow 0
Sonnet III 0
Sonnet II 0
Sonnet I 0
Sometimes 0
So They Told Me Society... 0
So I Heard In Class Today 0
So Far Away 0
So Beautiful 1
She Will be Missed 0
She Didn't Know 0
Running for My Life 1
Revolution Pie 0
Revision 0
Rejection 0
Questions 0
Pinnochio 0
Owl 0
Over You 1
Our Silent Stranger 0
Our Broken Possibility 0
Originality 1
One Coke with Two Straws 0
On Loan from the Universe 0
Nothing But Tomorrows 0
Not to Be 0
Not So Constructive Criticism 0
No One Knows 0
My Wish 0
My Shackles 1
My Friends 0
My Dream Truth -1
My Box 0
Mother Dearest 0
More 0
Mixed Signals 0
Maybe Crazy is Catchin' 0
Maya... 0
Loving You 0
Love 0
Losing Someone 2
Life 0
Letting Herself Love You 0
Faith 0
Kryptonite 1
Just Listen 3
It Seems Like I Can Only... 1
Incarcerated 0
If the Whole Wide World Was Up to Me 0
If Only 0
I Told You That I Loved You 0
How Did You Get Here? 1
Hoping Against Hope 0
Hold Fast to Love 0
Her Missing Soul 0
He Told Me He Was Coming 0
Half 0
Growing Up With You 0
Go Ahead and Gasp 0
Giving Thanks 0
Game. Set. Match. 0
Freedom 0
For You I Will 0
Flying from the Masquerade Ball 1
Finding the Lost You 0
Fell 0
Falling 1
Extraordinary Girl 1
Effortless 0
Dying Without You 0
Drifting Apart 1
Don't Make Me Any Promises 0
Differences 2
Did You Ever Wonder... 2
Despite Our Efforts 1
Depression 3
Defining Me 1
Deeper 1
Dear Daddy 3
Come to Me 0
Closets 3
Broken, Bruised, and Bloody 2
Breaking Through the Sky of Lies 1
Blue 3
Bloody Love 0
Birthday 1
Between 0
Be Good to Your Daughters 2
Band Aids 1
An Ode to Music 4
An Ode to Dreaming 1
Americans, the Circus Folk 4
Alone 2
A.D.D. 3
A Not a Poem Poem 3
A Love Forgotten 3
A Love Deferred 1
A Beautiful Lie 7