Living With the Sound

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Living With the Sound


I've lived with the sound of what
are called fighter-jets all my life:
sonic-booms over the Sierra Nevada then,
air-scraping roar of weapon-laden planes
over Puget Sound now. It is

a sound denoting the American Empire.
That is a fair statement. Anyway, today
when the noise materializes, a cat
lifts its head instinctively, as if to try
to discern the sound through the ceiling.

I lift my head to look at the cat. The sound
has always been the sound of something
far above and beyond my control,
closer than the sky, farther
away than the moon.

Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom