The room is waiting Before anybody speaks Walls holding their silence Ceiling listening deep A chair against the floor A footstep crossing through The sound of someone breathing Changes the shape of the room The air between us Is waiting to be filled With every voice arriving Every silence standing still A word begins on one side And travels through the space Finding its way around us Finding somewhere it can stay Someone clears a throat Someone laughs and looks around A quiet little ripple Moves across the room somehow One voice becomes another Then another joins the sound And suddenly the empty space Has something moving through it now The air between us Is waiting to be filled With every voice arriving Every silence standing still A word begins on one side And travels through the space Finding its way around us Finding somewhere it can stay Not one voice alone Not one sound that has to lead A room becomes a gathering When everyone can be heard Some voices rise Some voices fall Some disappear Then return again And somewhere in the middle We begin to sound like more than them The air between us Becomes a living thing A rhythm made of voices And the quiet in between The room is no longer empty The walls have found their tone Every sound belongs here And nobody speaks alone When the last voice fades The room will hold it still A trace along the ceiling A quiet against the walls And for a moment after Before the silence starts The air between us carries Everything we left behind
