Friday, December 3, 2010

When Silence Was

Silence was not always so golden.

There was a time
when it was banal,
oppressive, deafening,
when men would
break their own bones,
crack their tender noggins
against walls of waddle,
daub, and timber-

to hear, and to feel
at the same time.

Out of desperation,
forests were cut down
in the hope that by
some crude geometric
combination,
a perfect pitch could
be hewn-

from the ewe,
the ash,
the elm.

There was a time when
the ear and the nose
had more in common.

Foul odours
and the foul noise
of the illiterate
and vain alike
swam together
in a cess,
polluting the air
with offense
and petty curses,
but that drowned
out the deafening
drone of blood
rushing through
the brain.

From there,
the street,
and then into
the chambers,
the concert halls,
where again,
sounds filled the
thick, hollow din
of a void,
sonus in absentia.

Where the constantly
fluttering hearts,
that lilt, and whirl
as they do today-

the hawks, doves,
grackles, swans,
and loons alike
who were always
migrating from
famine to feast
to day of rest,
would strain to
hear in the darkness
during the one time
when silence was
allowed to fall
and fill space.

It was when the conductor
ascended the podium,
and began the first
movement.

Silence was not
always golden.

Angry, cholic men
would write
symphonies
and take those
fluttering hearts
old and young alike
to the terminus of
their emotional trajectories.

And the crowd could
leave in peace and fly
again into an uncertain,
and terrible future.

It was not until the age
din and whir and hum
that silence,
like freezing cold
and burning heat,
and the sea
and the air
could be tamed
and directed.

It was a force,
like nature and pain,
and though we
still dread its presence
in conversation,
and war,
what a relief that
we have learned to
accept it.

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