The hollow silence gripped the night,
Beneath the weight of silent skies,
Where stars once whispered dreams of light,
But faded away as desires had died.
The wind of life, a fleeting spark,
Danced through the trees, then quickly waned—
Moments dissolved into the dark,
Lost to the hollow silence’ gloom.
Time marched on, indifferent still,
A tireless thief, unseen, unkind,
Stripping bare the fragile will
Of those who sought but could not find.
The hollow silence swelled and grew,
A wave that drowned all sound, all sense—
The world spun on, yet no one knew,
Trapped in its vast indifference.
No light to guide, no ardour to grant,
The weight of days, too vast to bear—
For in that void, all breathed, all lived,
Nonetheless, it only grasped at hollow air.
With each effort made, an echoed sigh,
A sunken sound, a ghostly tread,
Chasing stars that blurred and died,
In skies where all the dreams had fled.
The sun did rise, the moon did fall,
But neither heeded mortal cries—
Existence, vast, untouched by all,
Turned a blind, unfeeling eye.
The hollow silence claimed its prize,
Wrapped every thought in numbing frost—
For in the end, beneath those skies,
Reckoning all that was treasured and lost.
And finally, a longing, despite the void,
For meaning woven in the haze,
Seeking truths that fate destroyed,
In endless nights and hollow days.
A hollow silence called so near,
Its cold embrace, a final snare—
The search for answers, year by year,
Yet only shadows lingered there.
Still wandering, lost and small,
Through labyrinths of endless nights—
Hoping, though fearing the fall,
That something waited beyond sight.
But time, relentless in its flight,
Left all dreams to fade away—
The distant resonances of the night,
A silent plea that none could sway.
Reaching for more eventually only found,
The hollow silence, all around,
Burying all without a sound.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
