> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.yacubdavidsmith.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Into Silence
- URL: https://www.yacubdavidsmith.com/into-silence/
- Published: 2026-09-26T06:23:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-29T18:19:32.000Z
- Author: yacub david smith
- Tags: Poetry, Just Like Cambridge

Our apartment on 71 Phillips Street was located  
the Cambridge Street side of Beacon Hill where  
Cambridge runs into Charles Street.

The Charles Street T-Stop is raised high,  
like a hanging island, above  
the sea of endless traffic during  
the daytime all around.

The red brick homes of fame  
and small shops with open doors  
with little bells strung up  
jingle sales like a golden winter carol.

But now is September,  
We are standing on the roof deck  
of our flat, looking out.

The sun is setting over Cambridge.  
The buildings of MIT and the green  
of the Esplanade glow in the evening sun.  
The Charles River is still, and  
the reflection of the sky in twilight appears.

The low rumbling of the T, charging  
from the underground tunnel with  
passengers travelling towards the crimson sunset,  
resonates within us.

The sun is there. Soft like  
yellow satin pillows, big and bright,  
like an open sunflower, each ray  
fat and wild, light radiant petals  
reach out, the sky thirsty for  
its quenching touch — the sky  
scorched and lying in a basket  
of heated clouds, red and orange  
fruits blurring across the horizon.

We look out over the river  
until the sun is no more,  
until the sky collapses under  
the weighted rage of day,  
until the first stars lie scattered  
upon the surface of the waters  
in the unending calmness of  
the day’s final throws of death.

Lights from automobiles move  
in a dazzling array, like  
white lightning, and inside  
the buildings — the Prudential, the John Hancock,  
the administrative and teaching halls along  
Memorial drive, my old office in Cambridge,  
close to the Longfellow Bridge— rooms  
are bright with light from those resisting  
the inevitable darkness, the blanket of night,  
the cold ground under foot and the  
stones and bricks chilled into silence.

This is where we are.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/3f/853f64ad-6a88-411e-89c5-7dab21a5ef22/content/images/2026/09/mark-and-mark.jpg)