I sit with my tea
The silence sits with me
Deafeningly 
Piercing my eardrums 
With its wordless cacophony 

It has made its forever home 
In the lounge where I now sit alone 
It’s been there a while
Years of rooting itself in place 
The air, the space 
Is soundless, still 
Like the world in night’s numbing vigil 
I look around for something 
Anything to cut through the dead air
Its atoms conspiring 
With the silence that sits everywhere 

And then I see it, a little plume
Floating, dancing in the room
From my mug
As the tea steams up
Severing the bond of silence and air
The desolate, deflated, joyless pair
Their essence once filled
With people now gone 
The moist vapor wafts in
Reaching into spaces 
Where images, reminiscences
Lie inert, forsaken
Loosening, thawing, warming them

I take a sip of my tea
I feel my spine tingle 
Familiarly
As I’m wrapped in the arms
Of rekindled memories.