Such quiet

I walked the streets home,
bathed in orange mist
and serenaded by silence,
there were neither bums
nor sirens to accompany me.

The city is too loud!,
they always swear,
and keep chattering among charts and graphs.
But screens cannot replace eyes
or newspapers ears,
the hidden costs of noisy schemes and ceaseless movement.

Yet the tree limbs barely rustled
and the grass lay dormant,
along with the dogs,
undisturbed by lonely footsteps.

It is not that such quiet is better
so much as a prophecy
of perils to come,
and, perhaps, the promise of reckoning.
Still, the ground did not stir
and the dirty snow lingered defiantly,
as if casting aspersions.