And lo,
at noon,
digital silence
fell across the land–

    no phones,
    no pods,
    no pads,

    no tweets,
    no posts,
    no notifications,
    no e-mails,
    not a single text–

only silence.

And in the silence,
suspended there between heaven and earth,
as the veil between the eyes and the soul
    (between distraction and awareness)
tore asunder,
they knew themselves.

And they were sore afraid.

It was as if
graves opened
and the hastily interred returned.

For three hours it was thus…
the earth pressed into
the potential blessing of silence.

Three hours.

And then,
most welcomed the return of static,
    tossed the dead back into their graves,
    Photoshopped the rent curtain.

A few remained behind,
wondering at the world for the first time.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.