POEM: The Quiet
The Quiet
I’ve leaned my white faces to a wall:
Now they keep their mouths closed—
color has been too eager to confess.
The brushes lie rinsed and sunned—
their bristles call out to my wrists
and my hands that once moved un-trembling.
Tonight I set my instruments,
like one sets down a mirror
after beholding the face of love-
they await your eyes.
Oh you, my Angelic —
the world is always fond of flame,
but now it salts its bread with ash
and thinks the smoke is right.
And you, you walk upright in daylight
carrying your grave like another spine.
You might wear their borders —
your veins forced to split open,
each pulse, the name of your home.
So the world can keep its red mouth,
I’ve no choice in letting maps
swallow themselves—
but the metal singing to the sand,
oh how the song’s killing me slowly.
There was a sound once—
a low, unarmored sound—
invited, and equally sought—
not trumpet, nor an anthem,
it was a breath crossing distance
as if distance were a benediction,
the story of us sings in that sound.
I keep that holiness beneath my tongue
like a forbidden syllable,
for the dunes remember the weight of steel
and they can recall the weight of feet
returning.
And if the night has leaned too far into fire,
there is still is a margin where embers don’t burn.
You see, I’m not abandoning the garden.
I am placing it under stone.
Our roots know how to help it wait,
and our seeds disobey their extinction.
There is a country I carry
that does not appear on any flag.
It is not drawn in ink
but in the space behind my breath,
where something stands clear with love
despite artillery and decree.
That’s where you’ll find me.
And should the burning edge of evening
close over your name,
know this:
I did not let it die.
I keep it in the chamber
where war knows it must kneel
before it enters.
But, I am going now,
until the metal tires of kissing earth,
But not in despair—
like the dark growing ashamed of itself,
But not in deniability,
when the sand shakes its glass from
our eyes—
And returning to the room,
I will unseal the canvases.
And what was hidden
will rise.
Oh my heart.
Oh my dear and gentle friend-
until next time, then.
Marni Fraser
0302.2026
Self-Portrait, mixed process, 2026
