Into the Silence @ AMERICAN DIGEST

November 23, 2009

Into the Silence

1.
The last sound heard before the silence
Wrapped around my flesh in wisps,
Was the shriek of frozen ambulances
Carved in sharp, revolving red.
Then two holes in my skull sealed shut,
And on my tongue I heard the tang of brass.

At first a ringing whine rose high and faded far,
Then bells began, each dun and laced with smoke,
And merged with walls of wind on water raised,
Bloomed high in white, white only, drifts
Of falling snow that falling softly
Blurred beneath all shapes of sound and speech.

Music's memory remained, and moving lips
Became the only signs of sound that I could see
And all my mind stormed not with silence,
But with dark brushed deep on deeper dark
Within which all stars died, and dying threw
A single trace of song beyond all song.

It moaned and chittered, groaned and sighed.
It grinned at me, inscrutable and blank
As shells evicted by the sea are spurned
By waves and parch above the sand,
Polished first by dust, then honed by rain,
Into white basilicas of bone.

2.
Made new, I loved large gestures.
Marked furrowed face and curl of lip.
Memorized the signing hands that stripped
My half-guessed comprehension bare,
And learned at last to wait upon a glance,
Upon small words scratched on slate.

As days to years enlarged their rule,
All records writ within my skull were smudged,
All songs and music drifted off to send
Pale emblems of their realms as tribute
To that stone that once had formed a throne,
Crowned now with unsensed pleasures shrugged.

All treasure spent, all gems decayed,
All metals melded into dust, all trace of walls
Where once the filigreed firebird sang,
And drums of heroes' skins were stunned,
Were now but shadows strewn as faint
As lines of light on planets seen from space.

And then, with time, all that ... erased,
And sands and seas swarmed over all,
And ruled at last alone a globe of frost,
Of ice, of snow, of sheaves of glass,
Until along that farthest strip of polished shore
One distant crystal glinted, gleamed, and chimed.

Posted by Vanderleun at November 23, 2009 9:33 PM | TrackBack

I came across this line just yesterday while reading a volume of Frithjof Schuon: "It is quite possible that if Ramakrishna had heard the Ninth Symphony and could have somehow grasped its musical language, he would have fallen into samadhi, something which happened to him when he saw a lion for the first time... but we doubt very much that there are many Ramakrishnas among Beethoven's listeners... "

There must be a few. That would explain what samadhi with your poem.

Posted by: Gagdad Bob at June 1, 2006 5:09 PM

And then, with time, all that too ... erased,
And sands and seas swarmed over all,
And ruled at last alone a globe of frost,
Of ice, of snow, of sheaves of glass,
Until along that farthest strip of polished shore
One distant crystal glinted, gleamed, and chimed.

These lines reminded me of these from Algernon Charles Swinburn (1837-1909):

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink;
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
Like a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

Posted by: John at November 24, 2009 5:16 AM

Beautiful, Gerard.

You've captured the terror---for that's what it is--of the onset of severe tinnitus---and transformed it.

Beethoven...

"15. "My miserable hearing does not trouble me here. In the country it seems as if every tree said to me: 'Holy! holy!'

Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods! O, the sweet stillness of the woods!"

53. "I must accustom myself to think out at once the whole, as soon as it shows itself, with all the voices, in my head."

80. "I haven't a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,--it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them."

"Beethoven: the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words" edited by Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

at Gutenberg

Posted by: Lance de Boyle at November 24, 2009 11:14 AM

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Gerard. Yet again you bring us the devil's dilemma: ask you to stop writing so we don't look so forsakenly inconsequential in comparison, or beg you for more at whatever cost.

Your grocery lists alone probably put most MSM writers in the shade. I'm with Kinch on this one.

Posted by: AskMom at June 1, 2006 12:19 PM

Oh.

This line:

"As shells evicted by the sea are spurned
By waves and parch above the sand,
Polished first by dust, then honed by rain,
Into white basilicas of bone."

Lovely. Just lovely.

Posted by: Cathy at January 2, 2009 7:42 AM

How did you do that? How did you make us see music, and give sound a tangible weight and form-- and then bid it transcend into light, and memory, and longing? Are our human senses merely an army at your command?

The sounds of silence were never lovelier.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at November 24, 2009 5:06 AM

How blessed are those who are able to hear the music in their souls and breathe it out, caressing each word, each note, placing it so perfectly into the universe.

This mere mortal can only sigh in blissful appreciation.

Posted by: Jan B at November 24, 2009 11:38 AM

I don't know as it's been along time since I placed a record on the turntable and cranked up the Heathkit, (and I'm too lazy to do it here and now), but I remember this as Beethoven's 6th, the Pastorale. My version was by Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. (The rest suck)
If I'm remembering wrongly, I apologise in advance

Posted by: Pixelkiller at November 28, 2009 8:55 AM