Silence

by Proof Schubert Reed, age 12

Proof Schubert Reed loves songs and clothes. Like a lot. But also loves to write. A concert of her original music was performed in Brooklyn Heights and three of her songs are published on SoundCloud. She's a 12-year-old NYC writer of plays, fiction, poems, and more, and can't wait to share with you what she's written! “Silence is the loudest sound in the universe.”

Silence is the loudest sound in the universe.

It strikes and bites and bangs and flows.

It seeps and floods through all pores and holes

It brings hope and inflicts the greatest fear

And is within itself time, laughs, footsteps, tears.

And then at night when Cinderella’s clock strikes,

The clubs and bars open, restaurants close for the night,

The osprey’s final soar trails down on the black sky,

And silhouettes blend in with the shadows of the night.

And finally at dawn, the birds all fly back out,

Hidden but deafening, perched and thinking loud,

And the loudest sound in the universe comes right back ‘round,

Only to die down again, when the silent din plays its sound.

And I sit alone, oblivion my axis,

My own voice trivial, and huge, and quiet, and loud, and dusk, and midnight, and dawn. Swallowed, but a friend still to the darkness.