SILENCE OF A WRITER

SILENCE OF A WRITER

By M. Kaupembe

Could he be going through something?

Maybe a heartbreak

Perhaps a writer's block

Or could he be gathering

The courage words demand

Days  became weeks

Weeks begot  months

And because the silence still lingered

People began

To write their own endings

Some said

The fire had finally died

Others swore 

The well of words

Had ran dry

But the wise know

Silence has never been an empty room

Sometimes it is a workshop

Where broken thoughts

Patiently learn their names

So they remembered his exact words:

'If one day

My name remains

Only in old notebooks

And fading conversations

Know this:

I loved language

Enough to leave parts of myself

Between its lines'

'And if my pen

Never finds your eyes again

Do not weep

Because the pages are blank

Listen instead

For every silence I leave behind

Will still be whispering'

'Many rains before

I was here

I loved

And I wrote'