Tinitis

There it was again: a low frequency hum

lasting only a few seconds, its source

within his head; always a sustained note

never wavering, though random in pitch

with a constant volume fading neatly to silence.

He’d never met anyone who heard

the same hum, at the same time and anyway,

was reluctant to share the phenomenon

in case he was considered a bit strange,

but he liked to think he had a special gift.

Perhaps his finely attuned senses detected

seismic shifts that might forewarn disaster,

as someone passed through the space

he occupied in a different dimension,

stirring the fading rhythms of the ancients.

John H Davies

14th April 2011