”In order to use language as a musical medium we must also approach it as a physical medium, as sound.” Zwicky, The Experience of Meaning, 150.
Within earshot of
the pub I turn toward the
cove, the raucous sea-
gulls, glittering waves.
I close in on the silence
of fellow creatures.
A chorus of shrieks
in the impersonal glare
of winter sunlight.
Later I’ll stop by
and say hello to the girls
who sing in their prep.
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Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
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Metaxyturn Diaries 
THe poem takes the reader through intervals of busyness and quiet, reflection nad communication, and shows her how these seemingly-opposed states are all just some of the waves of being. The reader questions the poet’s characterization of the silence of fellow creatures and this response is met by the poem’s next image of the shrieking gulls, and the poem’s closing image takes the reader with the poet to the company of sound, the satisfying off-rhyme counterpoint of ‘girls’ answering ‘gulls’, the image of busy human productivity and conviviality responding to the silences of reverie.
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