Inside the Smallest Shell, a Body of Silence

The body remembers the history 
of silences it's moved through—
it's learned to mark time by charting 
the absence of sound, the falter
preceding an echo's dissipation; 
the length of years since it's heard
from loved ones turned strangers. 
Why do the grains in an hourglass 
fall  at first so slowly, before gaining speed 
at the close of each round?  Every day 
brings new motifs of passage, cicada shells 
under trees. Coal trains let loose a fine
grey dust which palms the patio furniture, 
even as the hydrangeas burst into bloom.