An unexpected silence

It is, I think, time for another of my old poems. I have found one which I don't entirely despise but I must confess that it has been slightly rewritten. In the introduction to his book The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett says that it is a book with "two authors, and they were both the same person". He originally published it in 1971 and then published a substantially reworked version in 1992.

Well this is a poem with two authors, and both of them were me.

An Unexpected Silence

All the world’s pain is in a single tear in the night,
A whimpering in the darkness.
All the world’s pain is in a shadow missing from the window,
A footfall that is not heard.

It is not in the deaths of hundreds in disaster.
It is not in the deaths of thousands in catastrophe.
It is not in the deaths of millions in war.
It is not in numbers.

All the world’s pain is in the sudden death of one person,
In an unexpected silence.
All the world’s pain is in a room filled with ghosts
And graveyard dreams.

I'm sure that I could do better than that but I'm reluctant to do much with the early poems as I prefer to let them show where I started because that way there is a chance that some progression in my abilities might be evident. Or it might not.