Dead Air

July 1 2011

He said sound never dies.

That all the music

ever played

still exists,

in infinitely diminishing vibrations

beyond hearing.

And everything said,

every fall, collision, upheaval.

I’m not sure about this.

Because energy diffuses into uselessness,

illumination, to heat.

A dull glow

at the end of the universe,

a few degrees

from absolute zero.

But still, I’m imagining earth

as a greenhouse of sound   —

bouncing-off the stratosphere,

reflecting back

from ground.

A deafening resonant cacophony;

and how hard it would be

to extract

even a fragment of meaning.

All the lies, and vows

and laughter,

the cries, confessions, regrets.

Songs of love, and passion,

soulful dirges of death.

Even the humming

under my breath.

Everything, compressed

into a low-pitched thrummm,

beyond our comprehension.

So what you said, impetuously

that one forgettable night,

goes on and on

forever.

And never said,

because you ran out of time

lost courage

let die of neglect,

you regret

even more.

This is like the tree that falls in the forest

and no one heard   —

there is no sound

when no one’s listening,

or no one’s there to hear.

And the deafening silence

you left behind

is dead air,

the perfect calm

that persists

at the eye of the storm.

A tiny void

in the ear-splitting noise

that envelopes planet earth,

still waiting

to be filled.

I heard Victor Wooten – the celebrated bass player – on a podcast interview, and he said this about music. My immediate response was awe; quickly tempered by the realization that it contradicted the law of entropy:  because energy inevitably degrades, diffuses, can no loner do useful work. Vibration is reduced to the lowest common denominator of heat, in which music and meaning are lost. So while the sentiment may make sense spiritually, it fails thermodynamically.

But it was a great starting point for a poem, and I followed it along until it graciously gave me the ending. Which I think is unassailably true:  that in the end, we regret much less the things we do – no matter how bad the outcome – than the things we don’t.

The reason is more arithmetical than metaphysical:  we can imagine any number of potential outcomes for the road not taken; of which some are inevitably fabulous. While there is only one outcome – the one we’re stuck with – from the road we took.

But the larger truth is that a life of timidity and self-imposed limitations is probably going to be a lot less full than one of boldness and challenge. (Regrettably, I think I fall into the former group.)