The Grammar of Silence

Before the birds wake to their insistence, silence holds its breath like someone learning to be alone.

The world cracks it open— horns, voices, the grind of becoming. Silence shatters into a thousand smaller quiets.

By three o'clock the noise has worn grooves in the air itself. Silence pools in the hollows between sound, patient as sediment.

When dusk arrives with its soft certainties, silence returns—not innocent now, but wise with the day's small breakages. It settles in the chest like recognition.