The cricket in the telephone is still.

A geranium withers on the window-sill.

Cat's milk is dry in the saucer. Sunday song

Comes from the beating of the locust's wings,

That do not beat by pain, but calendar,

Nor meditate the world as it goes round.

Someone has left for a ride in a balloon

Or in a bubble examines the bubble of air.

The room is emptier than nothingness.

Yet a spider spins in the left shoe under the bed--

And old John Rocket dozes on his pillow.

It is safe to sleep to a sound that times brings back.

--from Certain Phenomena of Sound; Wallace Stevens