The speaker sits down to listen, hoping for quiet, and discovers how crowded the world of sound is. The ceiling fan's hum is the loudest, followed by crows, cars, trucks, voices across the street, and someone moving in the next room. Even breathing becomes a sound. The list is plain and unhurried, so we hear the ordinary day arriving piece by piece.
Then the speaker turns inward and the noise shifts to something smaller: typing, and a blinking cursor. The repeated "on and off" mimics its rhythm, and the cursor seems to wait patiently, almost like another presence in the room. The last line is the quiet turn. The speaker says they are emptying their mind, but only "so I would like to believe." That small admission of doubt gives the poem its gentle, wry mood. Calm is something the speaker wants, yet the poem suggests a mind never quite goes blank.