Elizabeth Waiting

The house has long been too quiet.
Your shoulders round with it.
The skin of your neck sags
with folds of many silences.
Like it or not, you've learned to bear
that relentless hollow,
the one you curve your body over
each time you bend
your knees and neck in prayer.

But now the silence thrums
with gathering life--the stringing of sinew,
bone and bone, tiny building-up,
tiny knitting of prophet child within you.
As Zachariah minds his own silence,
your lips open and shout!
You sense it--the world swells
for joy.