Silence - Sept 17 2022

 

Silence

Sept 17 2022

In this spectacular silence

it’s not so much an absence of sound

as a thing

in and of itself.

Just as air has substance,

weighing invisibly down

in pounds per square inch.

I feel receptive

ears alert.

The other senses recede,

and my hearing drills down

through unexplored layers

of fainter and fainter sounds.

As if my body

had become uncommonly loud;

the heartbeat booming

turbulent blood surging

through great curving conduits

along arterial walls.

I swallow hard

lungs bellow.

My airway resists,

at every intricate bend

and narrowing

along its densely bristled surface.

Even when I hold

there is a faint foundational buzzing

that comes from who knows where.

As if the brain

starved of stimulation

had manufactured its own,

and I cannot fully trust

how real.

As if our molecules resonated

with the background radiation

that fills the universe

with its flat grey noise.

When a mouse ventures out,

scurrying over the floor

on nimble pink feet.

And I am a jungle cat, ears perked,

pouncing on the sound

with steel-trap hearing.

The anticipation

has me on edge.

Because only in death

is silence absolute.