She Knows But Cannot Speak 

Nick Mesler

To sit, deep in thought on the riverbank, was all she could do.
Leaves aimlessly drifting, sparrows singing, she listened
but could not be heard. She had become deft at the art of
not speaking. Or had they beaten it out of her?
The selfsame thing she endured, and shed light upon, had become
the punishment they used to end her vocalizations.
Branches entwine her throat
Like a vice of freedom, constricting yet mentally rejuvenating, yet
roots tangled her feet, pinning her legs, a captive she became
of things she understood but could not speak… no one could know
of the torture she suffered. Punishment they would never feel. She could not speak
but she listened, and she knew. And the river listened, and it knew.
They all talked, from time to time. And they knew.
The sparrow stopped singing, her song echoing across the glade.
A lamentation for the voiceless, omnipotent and pure,
and they knew.