The Impossibility of Silence

"Holiness is a force, and like the others can be resisted."
      Annie Dillard, "A Field of Silence" in Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982)


1.

First thing in the morning
is the ringing of artificial bells
that once inspired H.D.T.
to cast aside "mechanical
aids" for wakefulness.

The daily glide & spin
creates a noise like
liftoff & sustains
through the hour
a tunnel's windy
rattle & hum.

Then there is the shouting
above the nonsense
of the braindead 
megaphone.

The internal
monologue always
warning that too much
talk might ruin even
the eagerest of ferns.

The click, the buzz,
the vibraphones
in every bag
& pocket
taking their
turns at
rippling
slightly the
delicate air.


2.

It is about this time
that one longs for the
desert's haunting emptiness
of sound, with footsteps'
constant pounding the only
sound external & the sole
saving thump of sanity.

To stop is to feel the heavy
drum of circulating blood
the hum of neurons firing.
leaping, gathering speed
to tips & return.

This terrifying solitude
is impossible to forget.
Nothing more frightening
than one's internal
holiness.

The only chance you have
is to run, and keep running
until sleep or its unruly brother
gathers the quietude around you
& hums the sound of a silent sea.


3.

But here, the gift of constant noise
keeps away the fearful quiet
(the voice of God?)
& headphones at the bedside,
a t.v. on the wall,
supply the soundtrack
of an always moving world
that spins us through
the night & at least
one more day.

Guilty, Conscious

I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. 

(Thoreau, Walden “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”)

Is the waking, then,

not, also, a little death?

Moving back to time

from the elegance

& lawlessness of sleep-space,

rousing weary guilt

from the richness of

indolent & wayward thought,

petty desire.

The mind is as quick

to absolve as to place blame:

It’s only dreaming.

Knowing the richness

of absurdity only

temporarily,

dream melts away to

both regret & thankfulness.

Leaving only a

wakeful emptiness:

the familiar poverty

of consciousness.

[It's late. I should be sleeping. Everyone else here is. But something kept nagging. So I went ahead and wrote this. I may take it down in the morning, but for now, here it is.]

[Note: It was written in three line stanzas and then rearranged. Those stanzas were significant to the design of the poem during composition, but it reads more easily divided as it is now. Forgive me, I am trying to get out of my normal way of writing. Feel free to criticize this and the prior posts as well. Finally, good night.]

A Meditation on Teaching from a reminder by H. D. Thoreau

When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.   (H. D. Thoreau, “Walking” 1851)

That this could be a place to look forward to is not lost on everyone. To take for granted is not to hate, and, contrary to the belief of many of the famous among us, it is not worse. Of course, it would be better if they all arrived ready, daily, to be brilliant, to be brought to new heights, to be dropped, to fly.

No one counts the sunsets or sunrises seen, nor do they grieve the ones they’ve missed. Perfect attendance is no longer cause for award. But the days when the light streams for their eyes only, when the crowds disappear, ear-buds, iPods, and cell phones stay in backpacks and laptops remain unnecessary, when the blue sky of possibility does not fade to the starry false-night of day-sleeping but streaks with the color of new thought, then being awake, being alive, being here is worth more than the pieces of paper suitable for framing. The good days, hours, and minutes are worth counting one by one, and not crossed out like days on a calendar between paydays and until vacations.

There is much forgetfulness to be remembered and much to be memorized and then erased, but the moments of real learning remain constant; the rest cease to have existed. The good hours, landmarks between the monotonous minutes and are the frustrating weeks, are never passed over unnoticed. When the sleepers in those awkward desks are awakened by a miraculous moment they remain just a bit more awake, and that much closer to the path that inevitably leads to the glorious and perpetual glow of a lifetime of searching towards an education of their own. It is this daily ritual, often faked, ignored, or just plain missed, that gets us up early on a cold, winter morning, that keeps us from walking away on a bright, spring afternoon, and that makes summer’s never-quite-long-enough recovery only temporary.