Basho sits beside the hut.
He notices the pond, the frog, the sound
made by the frog.
He does not write about it yet. He watches
for a long time. A cherry blossom falls.
He listens to the sound the water makes
without the frog.
The sound a page makes without a poet.
Again. The frog. Again. Plop.
He sees himself a man wrapped around
a silence.
Perhaps you have heard it, too, the sound
the water makes before it speaks.
Perhaps you, too, have felt it,
the loneliness, the light.