The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2008

Nothing

When we write with a pen

or read a book, the word

is what we see.  The space

is nothing.  It is just before

and after, to keep the words

apart.  But, in computers,

that nothing is something,

as real as a letter or number,

equal in its own place.

Likewise, there is a time

to sow and a time to reap,

but there is also a time in-

between, a time to do

nothing, to let the mind

drift.  In looking back,

shouldn’t we remember

more than the words

of our lives—the births,

the deaths, the letters,

the numbers?  Shouldn’t we

also think back to the time

we were fallow, growing

in silence and space?

Aline Soules