In Startled Silence -A poem inspired by Robert Dash’s “Into the Mystic”

To begin again
in the startled silence.
Nothing but stars
once filled the sky. Glistening
a soft lullaby. They are gone. They remain.
In waltz

with the sea. We emerge
from the blind precipice of discovery.
Where nothing is
still. And nothing is but

a speck of change. To collide.
A trickle of salt water migrating. I am
that trickle, down my neck
in moist relief. Humanity
and mind
embracing. The insignificance of
royal blue depths. Whose atoms are colorless
above my sails. I reach. To heights
immeasurable without a man-made ruler.

Of splendor. In his dance – spontaneous with
the tide. There is no
control for a child caught in
a sigh of wisdom. In that
position.

Hair drenched, eyes
closed just to breathe
the neutrality of
sodium.

Some days I dress
like I’m flying a shy spinnaker,
cotton waving to the shore,
hands rising without
limbs; just to feel
the luminosity of
an ephemeral bre e z e.

The doctor said she would live in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair, crippled by pain; that was thirteen years ago. Instead, Mirissa D. Price is a 2019 DMD candidate at Harvard School of Dental Medicine, spreading pain-free smiles, writing through her nights, and, once again, walking through her days. She is a Huffington Post blogger and emerging writer with publications in Yellow Chair Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Tuck Magazine. Follow Mirissa’s writing at https://mirissaprice.wordpress.com/.