In Japan, miles back behind the white walls of Kyoto,
all roads curl into crumbling spirals.
They burst in the sun and the oxygen gets thicker with sugar.
At night, the only lights I can see are square windows
like dirty gold tiles scattered over each strip of field,
the moon shivering at the surface of the river,
and the small bonfire my friend has made inside the mouth of a rusted grill.
We wrap ourselves in colorless blankets and talk about how still the night is
without the crunch of gravel, without the splash of kingfishers colliding with
the surface of the water.
When the conversation ebbs,
He says, do you hear that silence?
and my ears fill with the sounds of smaller things.
Dust cracking and crickets humming, grass brushing against itself
suddenly rises to a dull roar. And then,
earnestly, with the sweetness of a pragmatist, he says
sometimes I think that the stars
should be the loudest sound of all.