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.
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| White door—a symbol of silence |
NOISE
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
—Jean Arp, Arp on Arp
Construction is ongoing, banging away next door.
Metal clangs on metal, a pump machine loudly whirs.
Chop saws, screaming spirits, slice steel bars.
Sledgehammers thud solidly, breaking apart concrete.
Gravel fills apertures, ears, shuffling downward inside.
Dust and cement puffs, dry, burning in the sun,
Waft by, gray fumes at the volcano’s edge.
Mixers pour concrete, molten dough, into wooden molds.
Workers, perched birds, fashion steel bars into cages.
Walls grow layer by layer like a multistory cake.
Doors and windows appear as rectangular frames.
Jutting into the light, the first steps of a staircase ascend.
Drying walls glisten, soon to be lacquered with smooth finishes.
Day by day a building rises out of rubble, transforming—
A lady fastening a glittery brooch, a gentleman adjusting a silk tie.
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| Convergence (1952) by Jackson Pollock |
