Silence

Narrow Straits

Narrow Straits
A Jackpine Sonnet

Who threw the frog
that blocked the word stream
flowing through my throat?

The full moon whispered her secret
as she drifted past my window.

I tried to repeat her words
but I couldn’t move my lips
and my dry mouth tied
my tongue into little knots.

No sounds rose through
the airways of my lungs,
even though I am able to speak
in several different tongues.

The languages I love
were all backed up
in the narrow straits
of my throbbing throat,
never to be untied
by this sad season’s tide.

Comment:

So many allusions, so many illusions, so many elusions – where should I begin? Possibly with the loss of speech and then of language. How does one lose one’s speech? So many ways. A cough, a cold, laryngitis, a frog in the throat, a cake crumb caught half way down that makes one choke and splutter and rendered speechless. Stage fright can do it too. Standing there, in the spotlight, mouth open, no sound emerging.

Fear can act the same way – the word once said, can never be recalled – and so, one day, suddenly, we are afraid to open our mouths, afraid to share our thoughts aloud, afraid to speak out, afraid to stand out from the crowd. Hush. Keep quiet. Don’t say it aloud. Disobedience and doubt are no longer allowed.

Oh look, there’s Moo, peering over my shoulder. “Sky Blues,” he says. “My paintings speak for themselves. They don’t need words and they know no fear. That’s why I am here. To let color and line (and the proper spelling of colour) disperse your fear. ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ And one day I will paint you a rose, and you can see that it is a rose and you can call it what you want, but it will still be a rose and smell as sweet.” “You mean you put perfumes in your paints,” I asked him, “so that a painted rose smells like a real rose?” “Do you mean you stick frogs in other people’s throats,” he replied, “and create word dams so that language doesn’t flow?” “I don’t do that,” I replied. “Other people do it to me.”

“Now, now,” said Moo. “Remember Juan Ramón Jiménez – “No la toques más. Así es la rosa.” “Don’t retouch it any more. Roses are just like that.” “And word dams,” I asked him. “You can always remove them with a paint brush, and a little touch of the imagination,” Moo replied. “Well,” I said. “Can you now? Imagine that!”

Thumper

Thumper
A Jackpine Sonnet

How quietly she moves,
the old one, scarcely
disturbing the floorboards
way above my head.

Such a light touch
as she tip-toes from
room to room,
her floor my ceiling.

Not at all like the young one
with her two left feet,
both flat, and her elephantine
shaking the floor overhead.

We often wondered if
the earth was quaking,
the house shaking,
with the ceiling about
to come tumbling down
upon our waiting heads.

Comment:

How silent, the house, with the visitors gone and me and my beloved back together, alone, as we have been for so many years. The silence is broken only by the tick-tock of the grandfather clock, an occasional creak from a floorboard expanding in the sun, or creaking in the shade, the hiss of the kettle … a silence so deep that sometimes we gesture to each other or whisper low.

Don Ryan came over to visit and joy and noise returned. I made him coffee and he brought us a fudge delight. My beloved took refuge in the silence of the front porch and Don Ryan and Don Roger planned their future adventures. We will be working again together soon. Our first task – to finish reading Don Quixote and to complete our notes on our readings, suspended, alas, during the summer work season, but soon to return when university goes through its September Rebirth.

After Don Quixote, we will probably explore two picaresque novels, Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindler. That will be great fun for both of us, and I look forward to preparing the readings and their annotations.

When Don Ryan left, our table top noise melted away, silence returned, and Clare with it. Other friends will be visiting soon. They will break the silence with a soft tap on the door and a gentle voice calling “Hello!” We look forward to that. Meanwhile all is quiet and silence is golden.

Until the arrival of Moo. “Hello,” he bellows. “Writing again? Have I got a painting for you. You thought the little ones were noisy… well, speak for your self. Here’s your painting, Et Tu, Mu. It comes from Julius Caesar, the play. And remember, when you and Don Ryan get together you’re just as noisy as the little ones. And I am too, when I’m with you. That’s why the painting’s called Et tu, Mu. Time to go.”

Out he went, thumping and clumping, and left me to the tap of the computer keys and the ticking of the grandfather clock.

Clepsydra 8

8

… those other faces fading
     drifting away
          their smiles their frowns
               melting away into the dark
                    where no star glows

they cannot return
     nothing walks the woods
          save a silence
               where once they strode

empty the hand
     once held out to help them

silent the prayer
     emerging from pale lips
          and unanswered

where are they now
     those who walked
          this way before us
               glum ghosts
                    hushed their chorus

I promised
     to remember them
          but I forgot them
               as one by one
                    they slipped away …

Silent Light

Silent Light

Silent light,
          breaking soundless,
dispelling night’s mists,
          lighting up flowers,
so graceful,
          when decked out in light.

At night,
          the moon turns into a mirror,
a silver boat
          suspended in space.

Silent,
          its light enlightening
the heart’s dusky craters,
          the mind’s gloomy shafts,
where hidden treasures hide,
          waiting for the light.

The Value of Space

Space, round an object,
     reveals its aura,
its implicit innocence.

Consider the shimmer –
          a sunlit orange
basking in its basket.

Observe
          the pride of the cat,
nestled on cushions,
          its coat prickling
with sunlight.

Space
          surrounds us.
We walk within it,
          live because of it.

Space
           fills us.
Water
          in our body’s sponge
a part of us,
          as we become
a part of it.

Author’s Notes

We crave the space around us, the silence between words, but invasive noise destroys us, body and soul. We must seek the sanctity of silent light and space.