SILENCE
I’ve begun to realize that you can listen
to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.—Chaim Potok, The Chosen
Two
o’clock in the morning.
How
silent is the room…
Just
before a motorcycle roars,
Chopping
the air into jagged chips of din
Thrown
round and round a flywheel,
Spiraling
into the orifice of the outer ear,
Noisy
swirling water inside a gurgling drain,
Bowling
ball rolling heavily down wooden planks…
Then
it fades...
Sawdust
bursting in air,
Settling,
a fine layer of manna,
Powdery
film on the workshop floor.
You
cannot hear anything again.
Silence
is thick bread—
It
lies on a plate and makes a crusty whisper
Only
if perturbed by buttering.
Solid
door of heavy beams tightly riveted by iron knobs,
Slammed
shut and bolted,
Sealed
even in its tiniest crevices,
Stands
guard at the portal to the strange habitation of another world.
Originally
published in Boston Poetry Magazine (September
4, 2014)
%2Bby%2BJeffrey%2BCollins.jpg) |
| White 2 (2009) by Jeffrey Collins |
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ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Under conditions of complete soundlessness, or practically so, we experience tinnitus or “ringing of the ears,” and for this reason the empirical experience of perfect silence does not really exist.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Collins’ White 2 (2009), with its highly textured surface, is a more suitable metaphor for complete soundlessness than the color of just plain white.
Gonzalinho
Silence is the door to another world.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Silence is a quality of the soul. It is acquired and deepened through physical silence, but ultimately the source of genuinely satisfying silence is grace, the gift for which we are best disposed to receive through a dedicated life of prayer, in the most complete sense of the word.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho