Judges Peter Krok’s & Tree Riesener’s comments: “Two viewpoints, one of noise--crying babies, hip-hop, whistling kettles, TV, girls arguing--and the other of silence, of trying to rise over these noises into the purity of meditation. The images are of one house and its immediate surroundings of alley and parking lot, in different rooms of the house--kitchen, dining room, bedroom (plus the neighbor’s baby). The language leads the reader to feel somehow that the meditator in the bedroom, trying to ‘rise into the same silence that hangs between stars,’ is making a better choice than his/her housemates who are part of the ‘dark song of the city.’ Yet since they are all inhabitants of the same space, the reader may feel that all the other stuff of life--fixing a cup of tea, listening to music, raising children--may, in its own way, be as good a choice as that of the solitary in his/her meditation. This is definitely not a one-sided poem and lets us work at cracking open all the meanings within, as a good poem should.”