This poem is from my collection of 45 recent poems, "How to Make a Dress out of Silence"
Memsahib  

There are five lakes, three farms, a railway track,

blue hills far away and torn banana leaves

down in the valley where Mohammed lives:

I've just had the first copies of my collection of poems, "How to Make a Dress out of Silence" from the printer, and now have to complete the publishing process by sending copies off to the national libraries to be stored on their databases. I use Lulu.com to help me to print and market books, though the editors and publishers are Dempsey & Windle - that's Dónall and me at www.dempseyandwindle.co.uk.  My spotlight page on Lulu also displays and sells our books - http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/JanWindle66. And Lulu are offering a money-off coupon this week, till Friday 5th October, to anyone who logs on to buy any of the books on www.lulu.com

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Here's the title poem from my collection:

How to Make a Dress out of Silence

Take a yard of the quiet of a dawn
before the birds wake.
Use the sudden hush before a truth is spoken
and the breathless pause in the eye of a storm
to create a template for your bodice.

Be sure to calculate
the volume of the air held in place
by the lungs' alveoli, so that it stretches easily
across the depth and breadth of your chest.

Cut out the skirt from a length
of the boundless, soundless vacuum of space.
Now thread a hiatus with a sense of absence
and sew into one peace.

Try on the dress.
Listen…