Could you see us mining it?
Tractors hauling earth by town libraries,
The rhythm of jackhammers about forests,
Astronauts, swinging their picks
In search of the sacred metal.

Who knows-
I might find some nuggets myself.
Perhaps the dead fly on my windowsill
Keeps a pebble between his wings.

We’d wear jewelry of silence, too-
The sound-smith would whisper over a bar
And watch its melting liquid drip into a ring-

Meaning, we would propose with silence.
I’d spend all of my savings; present my lover
With the stillness of an Alaskan mountain
Crowned by the hush of birch branches.