A silence

We needed a silence.
Not the kind of silence that fills a room
when you think there's nothing
left to say,
or the daytime quiet of a flat you've been
confined to for far too long,
where the ticking of a clock can drive
you close to a kind of madness.
No, instead
the deep peace of being Away:
in a place where neighbours don't
crash to bed late
or endlessly drill on hot days.
Away is a place where you remind yourself to
listen to the absolute nothing of it all.
Only birds break the quiet
and we permit this gladly.
The silence shocked us at first
but we melt into it,
our feet padding on the decking,
our music low if on at all.
We strain to hear a disturbance
but it only comes in the form of
a hawthorn hedge creaking in front of us,
that sweet birdsong,
or the tiny sound of a wine glass
being set down on the table.
Here it starts to heal us slowly,
a warm bloom around our hearts,
a balm for the clash and blare inside our heads.
The silence fills the air.
The second we are home
we miss it, saying let's chase it again,
as soon as we can.