Poem of the Day: “The Voices of Dusk” by Jonathan Dick

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “The Voices of Dusk” by Jonathan Dick.  Dick is from Toronto, Canada. He has had over thirty poems published in various literary journals. Follow him on Twitter: @jjdickyboy.

The Voices of Dusk

Jonathan Dick

I love the birds, when it’s evening

time, and how often do we confuse

wanting to turn off the voice inside 

our head, with turning our head off

completely. I love the birds,

when it’s evening time and all the quiet

of a numbness stretches deep into the vastness

of my thoughts. How simple it would be to turn

off the mind’s voice, like a nuclear disarmament 

switch, but then what would we be? 

Perhaps it is safer to assume that the voice inside our head 

is actually life itself. Perhaps there is a reason

why we equate our voice with life?

I love the birds, when it’s evening time, 

listening to their chirping bones, what thoughts

could arise and devour from such airy 

afterthoughts?

Poet’s Notes:  The poem's narrator continually tries to simply muse about the birds he hears and sees going to their nests at night. Yet, as his mind flutters away like the birds he is watching, he finds himself trailing into thinking about his own thinking trailing off. This poem is an attempt at a narrator's identification of his own stream of consciousness.