Did you ever notice that just before your alarm goes off at 3:15 in the morning
your sleepy mind expects so much silence
that you’re afraid you’ll fall back to sleep?
Maybe you need to catch an early flight out or
maybe your dad was coming to get you out of bed and hit the road early for the trip
you were taking when you were so little.
But as you lay awake you think (or remember):
there are no birds chirping, there is no wind blowing, there is no coffee brewing.
When you should be alone in your wakefulness you are most certainly not,
because the traffic in the distance is accompanied
by the train you never hear, roaring.
Do the other people awake at 3:15 in the morning hear it too?
Who are they, the people driving trucks and trains in their own starlit silence?
But there is no silence, not really.
There are only sounds, invisible during the day, but solid enough to reflect moonlight
in the wee hours of the morning.

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About this poem.  I almost never write poetry.  However, I wrote most of this poem in my head last Thursday when I was getting ready to pull myself out of bed at 3:30 am to catch a flight to Arizona.  The sounds in the distance – freeway traffic and a distant train – brought me immediately back to car trips I took with my dad and family that almost always started early in the morning.  He would come in and wake me up, and sometimes I would be allowed to stay in my PJs while he drove down the near-empty roads.  The sounds were always the same – so quiet, but so constant.  Thank you, Weekly Writing Challenge, for giving me the opportunity to solidify my groggy thoughts on the Sound of Silence.