Poems on Sound and Silence
Selected poems on sound and silence from my next book of poetry, Two Mirrors, coming soon!
Quiet
Slowly it comes, beating on my chest.
What is louder, the beat or the silence
between?
Silence is a deafening thing.
If you have not heard it,
you are not listening.
If you are not listening to that voice,
then you may have erected false idols
that speak in tongues,
that speak in your language,
that speak in the ordinary affairs of
discursive deliveries that keep you
from true deliverance.
Oh, if quietude has not called you out
from your haunt and onto your knees,
then I cannot say what it is
you want me to say,
because the only thing I hear here
worthy of praise is quiet.
The Firework Fades
Have you seen the way
the firework fades?
Its sound resounding
into silence?
The beauty of a thing
is often in its ending.
The beginning evokes us
and the middle entrances,
But the end leaves us
with an empty happiness,
kind of like this sentence.
So, I Sing
And I love you more
than words could ever say,
because love is beyond all words.
I love you more than words
could convey, because love is beyond
all words of night and day.
And so, I sing to the sun,
and so, I sing to the moon,
and so, I sing.
I sing because the song is passing,
I sing because the seasons change,
and so, I sing.
Hallowed
There is a flag
that every being
salutes,
erected high and
tapered low.
It extends over all
the twelve sacred
directions.
The thirteenth point
is the directionless
centre.
If you look from here,
you will see the place
where mercy beckons
your eyes low,
head humbled and
bowed down, hollowed
to the bone,
just as an instrument
sitting silently in
the hands of
the lord.
Silent Prayer
Listen now carefully,
the teaching has arrived here.
It has been said, and I’ll say again:
the poems of love are the words of God.
Listen now carefully if you want to be here.
If you are not here, then where are you now?
When one is present, a light is turned on.
Another flower opens in the garden.
When one is present the birds sing,
another river returns to the ocean.
Listen now to the sound of The Light.
It is the ceaseless and speechless train
to the eternal.
We are all on board the carriage,
some flowers stay in their buds.
I hear the heart of love beating.
In this, I am aware, only aware.
Now listen carefully, the master is here.
Now listen carefully to his silent prayer.
Impermanence's Sermon
Life is improvising again.
Just listen to the maestro’s
silent listening.
He is all I can hear,
all I’ve ever heard
like an empty page awaiting
the first word.
He says to me:
I am the brilliant palette
of dawn and depth,
of dusk's glow and
crimson splendour.
In every shade, within me,
all colours spill over;
the blank canvas still
and fragile.
I am love's tender whisper
and the piercing cry of
despair that cuts.
In the hues of the living,
emotions full range,
I am there, in rainbows aplenty.
In the unforgiving frosts of winter
and the budding newness
of spring's grace.
In the cycles of seasons,
in prudence,
in impermanence's sermon,
my presence you can trace.
In the shoreless cosmos,
in between breaths,
in between beats,
existence and emptiness have met.
I asked for ears to hear,
and here it is,
right before me,
sound in all its glory.
Veiled in Vastness
Veiled in vastness,
the skies azure infinity stretches.
It is clear as day to those with clear eyes.
It is the friend you'd forgotten as time
lengthened to bring you distance, and
it is the space of closeness in that distance.
It is the ripe fruit trailing the air, falling
free from the tree, and it is the ground
that catches all things that fall.
In the shepherd's solitary horn blow
crossing mountain paths, it is heard
in the company of the herd.
Underfoot, in the tread of a soldier's
stealth, a light rain caresses the canopy
as a bird calls for its lover.
The reality of the Great Being
is the sound of the water, not one's thoughts about such sound.