Breaking Silence Is essential

 

Do any two souls hear in the same way —

take in the world along the same channels?

For that matter, does any one soul, one person’s deep center,

hear in precisely the same way

from one moment to the next?

Or is this listening

a process flying or swimming,

wherein the currents of air or water

move along the body,

touching one limb and then another–

dancing the body along a stream

of something more than thought

Or

feeling

alone

More than mind

Or

body.

Whole.

A wholeness

into which the words and music flow,

beginning with the listening

followed by the sound.

 

Barriers can muffle noise,

silence sound.

The dense forest far from the highway …

Peace

The deep ocean chanting in waves and winds

while below…

quiet rocking.

 

The double paned glass

that makes the apartment so removed from noises of the street;

the whoosh and whisper of the machine mimicking waves and rain

reducing conversation

to dampened peaks and valleys of sound

in the room next door;

Or the palm raised to the face —

the indignation — the refusal — the wall

of comfortable expectation

that children and women

will be silent in the assemblies.

That only the words of men

will pierce the air

and penetrate the souls of the assembled.

But not here.

Here

we will hear…

my voice, each other’s voices,

and the voice of the outcrying world.

We will hear

down into the center of our being

straight into the soul.

 

L0035641 A collapsible Victorian ear trumpet made of tin Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A collapsible Victorian ear trumpet made of tin made by Atkinson, Union Court, Holborn, London Photograph 19th century Published: – Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/