silence

when i come to these places of barrenness, i look arouund and wonder, how did i get here and what do i do now?

i hear whispers of poems. but nothing i can yet grasp.

i think the lack of silence is part of the problem. i can't recall the sound of stillness. i no longer remember the sound of silence. all around me cars, engines, people, trains, birds (even they have become blurred in the frenzy of sounds).

so i plug my ears with music. i leave off my silent longing and fill it with sounds which are less offensive. yet the longing grows.

it's ravenous now, i'm starved for silence. for a moment of nothingness like i used to know so tangibly. in texas, our home was silent about 90 percent of the time. all day long, my girl and i would dwell in this silence and read. write. study.

she had a little friend over once, who walked through our house with her ears plugged screaming,

i hate silence!

so far we've fallen.
so far we've fallen.

rilke wrote of silence being a rich man's commodity. these are the moments i long for the wealth to buy me the sound of silence.

these are the moments i think a retreat to the nunnery would suit me just fine.

these are the moments i wonder how anyone gets by without silence to cloak them, to frame their thoughts.

i hadn't realized how accustomed i'd become to hearing no thing. i long for it now. that silence, pine for it.

where can i go to be away from sound? apart from these noises which ring in my head and part me from my thoughts?