there was no noise-a poem i am sitting at the bottom of my garden, thinking how my life had passed away. the swing is uncomfortable under me, not designed for my old body. it was put there by my husband; bought it when i was twenty-eight. but that was sixty years ago. it's been twenty since he went away. there is no noise as i sit here, thinking about what has been. there is no noise. it is quiet. i recall, when i was sixteen, shouting at my dad in the garden. it was my first true love, he chased his hands off me with a gunshot from the window above where we were sitting, in my childhood, another swing. i shouted back, but now i hear nothing. i sang to my children when they suckled me, the first one came at thirty-two; the next at thirty five. i sat on this swing, child in arms, as they fed, i would sit here, it was not uncomfortable then. i would sit and sing, but now i don't sing. now it is silent, except for the wind. no sound, no noise. no. nothing. how incredible it is that once i was something. when they told me that my first was in for it i screamed. raw. he is only sixteen. got a life ahead of him yet, i said. i was sure. the doctor only nodded, sympathetically. six months, they gave him. he took three. i screamed, then, to show how much i cared. now there is no noise. soon i will see him there