Once bustling, rapt villages,
reveled in stories
shared by griots,
mesmerized by them
ancient stories from recesses
of the underworld where Persephone dwelled.
They remembered them all,
and the people listened.

No words can be dredged to warm
the frozen silence of deafness,
because it is fall after the harvest
and the Queen of the shades
has been dragged back to the darkness
throne emptied and cursed,
silence growing lavishly on the souls of the dead.
Will hearing return in the spring,
With the moribund spring shoots?

All is enveloped in silence.
Hearing lost.
Only silent lips move now
conjuring stories from seconds ago,
forgotten tomorrow.