Museworthy: Silence and its Answer

Museworthy: Silence and its Answer

The uprooting of words
took place here
in the country with no tongue
The most silent of plants
grows here
It is an animal
that turns its belly
to the blade
and faces with the heart's generic face
the flower that bears the cold,
the absence which remains
after every replacement
I am the animal,
the plant,
the silence
Where might I bleed from
to impress your fifty words for wound,
your language of blood?

BY MTC CRONIN

MTC Cronin has had seven books of poetry published, the most recent being Bestseller (Vagabond Press, 2001) and My Lover's Back — 79 Love poems (UQP, 2002). After being employed for most of the 1990s in law, she has in recent years begun teaching literature and creative writing at secondary schools and universities. She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart. Her books are available by contacting her at: or phone: (02) 9550 2918.

From Green Left Weekly, March 13, 2002.
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