A continuation of ELO's story in Telephone Line
Prologue: The Rain Listens
Rain drifts slow tonight,
as if it knows
the weight of a line stretched thin.
A phone waits in my hand,
quiet as the space between us,
and I wonder if
the world still remembers your voice.
_______________
I. When She Picked Up the Phone
The rain spoke slow that night,
stretching words across rooftops
but never landing too hard.
I dialed your number
like pulling at a thread
that had frayed too long ago.
Then...
you answered.
Your voice, softened by time,
folded in on itself
like paper creased and smoothed too many times.
We spoke small:
the weather, the work,
who was still here, who wasn’t.
Your laugh came late,
a flicker I almost didn’t recognize.
Mine felt borrowed,
like a coin passed from hand to hand.
Funny how a line
can stretch a thousand miles
and still feel like a wall.
We tried, didn’t we?
To step back into the music,
but the needle was worn,
the song cracked in half.
You said, It’s good to hear your voice.
I said, You too.
And that was enough.
The rain hushed,
as if it understood.
Static lingered between us,
sweet, tired.
You said, Take care now.
I said, You too.
When the line went dead,
I did not cry.
I did not smile.
I only listened
to the quiet,
the slow folding of something ending right.
_______________
Silence sits heavy,
yet it carries weight.
A folded pause
that speaks louder
than anything said.
_______________
II. After the Line Went Quiet
I picked up the phone
and let your voice unfold -
softer, older,
the edges worn like a letter
that had been read too many times.
We spoke small:
the weather, the work,
who still breathes, who doesn’t.
Your laugh drifted through the line,
sunlight slipping past blinds.
Mine...careful, borrowed;
found its way back to you.
Funny how a line
can stretch a thousand miles
and hold its hush.
I wanted to tell you
how the garden leans differently,
how the empty chair remembers,
how the house listens
to echoes of our days.
But the words paused,
and the quiet was enough.
When you said, Take care now,
I held it like a feather
resting on my palm.
No tears. No smile.
Just silence settling,
patient, soft,
like rain fading into dusk.
And in that hush,
I heard something end
and something remain,
as it should.
_______________
Some things close slowly,
folded into themselves
like a letter left on the windowsill.
The world continues
without apology,
and we must do the same.
_______________
III. Afterword - The Quiet Goodbye
Years later, I think of that night,
not for the words,
but for the way silence held steady
when they were done.
Love had become smaller,
simpler, almost polite.
We did not fix it,
nor mourn it,
nor pretend it still lived.
Sometimes heartbreak
is only the world finding balance.
The rain falls, the phone hums,
two voices remembering
who they were,
then hanging up,
moving on to who they’ve become.
Some endings need no wound.
They just settle,
like dusk after a long, bright day...
rain softening,
light folding gently
into shadow.
_______________
The Phone Hangs
I leave it silent now,
resting like a hand on the table.
Static hums faint,
as if remembering
what we almost reclaimed.
The line stretches empty,
but there is comfort here;
in the pause,
in the hush,
in knowing that endings
can be gentle,
and still carry a pulse of grace.
GBS jr
2019
________________________________
The Second Bloom: after the long quiet
Once, the silence was enough.
Then one day, it opened its hand...
and there was love, still breathing.
_______________
I. When She Dialed Again
Years passed.
The house grew gentle with silence,
the garden learned new seasons,
and I learned to live
without the sound of your voice.
Then one afternoon,
while clearing drawers for no reason,
I found your number...
ink faded,
paper soft at the edges,
like something waiting.
I stared a long time.
Then, without thinking,
I dialed.
Just to see
if the world still remembered.
You answered.
Your hello came steady,
warm as sun through winter glass.
And all at once,
the quiet between us,
years wide,
folded like wings returning home.
We talked small again,
at first.
The weather.
The ways the days had changed us.
Then the laughter came...
not borrowed this time,
but bright,
alive,
ours.
Outside, the sky opened its hands.
Rain began,
soft, deliberate,
as if the world was listening.
And just like that,
the years fell away,
and love -
old, patient,
unharmed by waiting -
rose from the stillness
and began to sing.
_______________
II. When He Heard Her Voice Again
It was late afternoon,
the light soft and slanting,
when the phone rang -
a number I almost didn’t know,
and yet my heart
rose to meet it.
Her hello
was the sound of something familiar
stepping out of memory.
I hadn’t heard that voice
in years,
and still...
I knew it by heart.
For a moment,
the world went still.
The rain outside
paused on the windows,
as if listening.
We talked small.
The garden.
The weather.
How the quiet
had grown around our lives.
And then -
the laughter.
Hers, like light
finding its way through leaves.
Mine, unsteady,
but true.
Time had done
what time does best -
worn down the sharpness,
left behind the shine.
And there, in that easy silence
that follows understanding,
I felt something lift.
Love did not rush back;
it simply arrived,
like a bird returning
to a branch it always knew.
When we said goodbye this time,
it wasn’t an ending.
It was a door,
opened quietly,
to let the light in again.
_______________
III. Afterward - The Second Bloom
Years pass,
and what we thought was finished
turns out to have only been resting.
Love has its own seasons;
its winters of silence,
its long, patient roots
hidden beneath the frost.
When they found each other again,
the world did not shout.
No lightning split the sky,
no music swelled.
Just two voices,
soft with years,
recognizing something
that had never quite gone quiet.
It is a rare thing...
to return not as who you were,
but as who you’ve become,
and still find the heart saying yes.
Now, the rain sounds different,
more like blessing than farewell.
The air hums with the gentle work
of forgiveness,
of beginning again.
And if love, after all this time,
chooses to open its hand once more,
then let it.
Let it come quietly,
as the light comes after dusk,
as the wildflowers return each spring,
unafraid to bloom again.
_______________
Author’s Note
This small sequence began as an echo.
The first voice - his - was written in the spirit of Langston Hughes, with its blues rhythm and quiet ache.
Later came hers, softer, more inward, drawn by the contemplative grace of Mary Oliver.
Between them stretched years of silence, until one day, I wondered what might happen if the silence itself became a kind of listening, if love, like the earth, could find a way to bloom again after its long frost.
These poems are about that quiet return.
About the patience of time, the tenderness that survives distance,
and the simple miracle of hearing a familiar voice after believing it lost.
They belong to no particular people,
and yet, perhaps, to all of us -
who have waited,
who have forgiven,
who have loved again.
GBS jr
2021
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