Listening To The Night

Right now
at 3 a.m.
there are people who are alone
and they choose to be alone
and they feel
the peace that flows
through every budding twig

and every chrysalis,
threading the dark centers
of distant galaxies
into the rosary
of breathing.
Right now
at 3:01 a.m.
there are people who are alone
and they do not wish to be alone
and they are lonely.
They are so alone.
And yet you feel them in the night.
You feel them all together somehow
in the beauty of a Great Absence

like a poised unfallen tear.

My presence you feel, I yours.

We are both listening.
You can hear the silence of my breath,
all breaths so near.
And you wonder, are there

seven billion solitudes
or only one?


Lotus by Bahman Farzad