Can You Hear the Termites Chewing?

Can You Hear the Termites Chewing

Can you hear the termites chewing

Most people can’t become that still

Few take time to sit or listen

Perhaps only a blind man could

With sharpened acuity and sensitive ears

Hear those tiny critters in the wood

Take a walk in the woods

Sit down on a rotten log and listen

Block out all else but the lumber jacks

Working in dark coal mines of wood

Chewing chewing chewing at this unending log

If you concentrate block out the noise around

And the symphony of creatures auditioning for a spot

Parking their flute or drum in your brain

For your future reference

If you block out everything else to true silence

Perhaps then you can hear the termites chewing

Beneath your seat on the decaying log

As for me it will never happen

Age and excess decibels have taken their toll

The constant ringing that never stops

Covers all the minute sounds silence might bring

Like termites chewing inside a log

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Photo: Ruth A. Roth