Fatal Kind of Deafness

There were times, mostly winters, in this lovely house when my choices seemed between solitary confinement and solitary confinement.

You do not die of loneliness.
Carrying the weight
of your own soul through
the hallways of the night,
hearing only the whisper of
the dead and living gone--
this is not fatal.  Memory
and fantasy mingle well.

Worry
when the stars stop breathing.
Worry
when the whispered
prayers of dark trees
no longer echo in your mind,
or ocean's tides exert no
voice in the choices of your life.

When all the music
in the dropping of a pin
ceases to ease the wringing
of your pain-wracked heart,
and you stop believing in
a day after tomorrow,
know that your mortal
illness has set in.