Successful at keeping quiet despite the most
Outrageous provocations wins. Are you ready,
Children? Begin. Wait, no! Professor, I'm not ready,
I want to talk and talk. I was under the cliffs at sunset
Just waiting for a load of laundry and savoring evening air
After a bit of rain and wind had broken the heat, alone
And in a quiet town, despite the tourists just blocks away,
And so all was ordinary and peaceful and birds
Were the noisiest chatterers, socializing in the greenery
Ahead of bed on a branch for the night, a fine glow
On the sandstone above all, also quiet, of course,
And I thought of the news item I'd heard this morning
Driving the highway outside Toquerville, a report
That French preschoolers and kindergarteners
Were now being trained to know how to be silent
During a terrorist attack by playing a game
Formerly used to calm rowdy groups of them.
A game is any charmed circle where the rules
Outside the circle, that are nature and can't be gainsaid,
Are disguised by the inside-the-circle rules that we made,
In which we pretend that we can't say for sure who will win
Until we play, can't say who could be the one king
Among us we know is the king of silence.
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