It's Still Life

I. The Sound of Emptiness

It begins not as silence,
but as sound’s echo —
the hum in a glass bowl after the strike,
the vibration
in a bell that holds no clapper.

Bellhollow
is the note that lingers
after the singer leaves the room.
A beautiful lie
the heart tells itself.

II. The Colour of Withdrawal

Pearl-pale,
drained of sun,
the shimmer on dust motes
in abandoned chapels,
the gleam of a floor no footstep warms.

This is not grace,
but its photograph —
still, clean,
cold to the touch.

III. The Altar of the Almost

Some kneel here,
thinking they’ve found devotion,
but they pray
only to the space between words.

They keep their hands clean,
their hearts orderly,
their lives so perfectly still
that no one dares disturb them.

IV. The Return

But a bell is not meant to remain hollow.
It is meant to be filled
with breath,
with longing,
with the messy, merciful noise of living.

Grace is not the absence of sound;
it is the courage to be the clapper.

V. Felreil’s Whisper

‘Do not worship the vase,’
his voice a thin scratch.
‘Worship the water that once filled it —
and will again.’

Felreil perches on the windowsill
of her city flat.
He looks to the street.

Let the sunrise live inside you,
not only as light,
but as direction.

Stillness can be a cage,
noise can be a prayer,
and every return to life
is rebellion

Return to the sound —
to the rumble of buses,
the murmur of libraries,
the messy, magnificent chorus
of being among it all.

VI. The Finality

May your hollows not become shrines.
May your quiet not be mistaken for peace.

And when you hear that faint glass hum,
remember:
even the most beautiful echo
longs for a voice to return.