A psalm for the middle of a busy week
While I live and breathe there is no such thing as true silence.
The breath whistles in my nostrils,
Howls in my throat;
Swallowing rolls in my ears;
My pulse surreptitiously marks time.
What, then, is silence?
I fear it – and thus I fill it – but I don’t understand it.
Why then, is silence?
We fear it – and thus we flee it – for we don’t understand it.
Silence is golden, it’s said,
What’s so lustrous about it, I wonder.
Is there golden silence in the splendour of the sun?
In the shining, burning stars?
Or are they too endlessly sending out
Their own speech, their own song, their own breath
Into a universal soundscape
Composing an unending counterpoint, the music of the spheres?
If not on earth,
If not in the heavens,
Where then is silence to be found?
‘Be still, and know that I am God.’
…I’m doing my best, Lord, really.
‘Be silent before the Lord, all the earth!’
But how can I?
Even if I could muzzle the murmurs of my physical self
My mind just. Never. Shuts. Up.
What if
silence is not the absence of sound?
What if
silence is the time, the place, the space,
the practice of perceiving sounds
other than those I make?
A deliberate restraint of my own noise,
The withholding of my own words,
Subduing my rush, my brisk, my active,
my loud explosion into the present moment.
A determined diversion from the nagging undercurrent
of my stream of alleged consciousness,
to wait for what may await me
if I would offer my attention.
What if I cease my incessant broadcasting
that I might receive
the unheard
unseen
unfelt
unknown signal?
If I still my lips,
prick my ears,
will I hear
the voice of Silence?
space 2 call home 