In order to view this poem as the author intended it to appear, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone.

In the Cave of Quiet
Debbie K. Trantow

This hunger is sweet as berries,
Sweet as sleep. Here I listen
Enclosed in the Great Mind.

The wide sky does not hold
These notes I’ve heard before.
This is a music shaped

By streams trickling down
A xylophone of rocks and ridges,
Some as fragile as glass.

Hearing the water’s voice
Echo off cave walls
I mourn the skunk by the side of the road.

I count the steps of animals on the trail.
I see how long it takes for trees to grow tall.
I remember my feet on the earth.

There’s a loneliness in meditation
In the cave of quiet
Where incomprehensible bells ring.

—
Debbie K. Trantow holds an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Minnesota, where she won the 2001 Gesell Summer Writing Fellowship. Her chapbook Hearing Turtle’s Words was published by Spoon River Poetry Press. In addition, she’s been published in Gertrude, The North Coast Review, The Wisconsin Review, Gyroscope, Poem, and other literary magazines and journals.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Debbie’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
Wrens and ‘Rents by Michael Bickford
Ice Cream at Sixty by Stephen Jackson

Table of Contents