silence

Those who have a listening heart can hear the song of silence.

«_My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast_! I will sing and make melody_! Awake my soul_! Awake, O harp and lyre_! I will awake the dawn._» In childhood these words had always risen in his mind when he watched the wind blow over the blue sky and through the trees_; but that was a time when God was not as now an object of fear and perplexity but one who was near to the earth, giving harmony and living joy._

I, too, stood on the sacred image. For a moment this foot was on his face. It was on the face of the man who has been ever in my thoughts, on the face that was before me on the mountains, in my wanderings, in prison, on the best and most beautiful face that any man can ever know, on the face of him whom I have always longed to love. Even now that face is looking at me with eyes of pity from the plaque rubbed flat by many feet. «_Trample_!_» said those compassionate eyes. «_Trample_!_Your foot suffers in pain_; it must suffer like all the feet that have stepped on this plaque. But that pain alone is enough. I understand your pain and your suffering. It is for that reason that I am here._»«_Lord, I resented your silence._»«_I was not silent. I suffered beside you._»

There is an ocean of silence between us_ and I am drowning in it.

This is how most stories end in the hospital. Not with crash carts and sirens and electric shocks to the chest, but with an empty room, a crisp white bed, silence.

Not every loss was confirmed by an officer at the door. Nor a telegram with the power to sink a fleet. Loss, often the worst kind, also arrived through the deafening quiet of an absence.

The sound is gone. There's nothing left but the insomniac throbbing of crickets. Crickets in the garden, the courtyard, the back courtyard. Close, domestic, identifiable. And those out in the country. Between all of them they raise, little by little, a wall that will keep out the thing that lies waiting for the tiniest crack of silence to steal through. The thing that is feared by all those who are sleepless, those who walk through the night, those who are lonely, children. That thing. The voice of the dead.

A dead dog is more quiet than a house on the steppes, a chair in a empty room.

I wanted to listen to him, but I did not want to answer now. That strange responsibility we feel towards others when they speak, to offer them the solace of any answer. Poor humans! And anyway he had not asked a question. He was merely floating there in the room, insubstantial, a living man in the midst of life, dying imperceptibly on his feet, like all of us.

Silence is a lie that screams at the light.

Lay downYour tired & weary head my friend.We have wept too longNight is fallingAnd you are only sleepingWe have come to this journey's endIt's time for us to goTo meet our friendsWho beckon usTo jump againFrom across a distant skyA C-130 comes to carry usWhere we shall all wait For the final green lightIn the light ofThe pale moon risingI see far on the horizonInto the world of night and darknessFeet and knees togetherTime has ceasedBut cherished memories still lingerThis is the way of life and all thingsWe shall meet againYou are only sleeping.

They took one look at me,And hated my black face.They took one look at me,And decided on my fate.They took one look at me,And forced an unknown fear.They took one look at me,And caused the shed of tears.They took one look at me,And decided I was wrong.They took one look at me,And now I'm singing the slave mans song...

There is still hope that if the people refuse to give up and keep silent, no matter how long or inconsequential their voices could be at the beginning, it would still be heard and justice be served.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don__ understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don__ understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don__ understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

IT IS BY CHOICE AND NOT BY CHANCES THAT WE CHANGE OUR CIRCUMSTANCES.

Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.

I did not believe in stalemates. I believed in resolutions, one way or another, and if I found myself on the losing end, so be it. Losing meant quiet, and forgetting quickly, and giving up nothing of any real worth to me. I did not debate restaurant bills, politics, wrongly delivered mail, divorces. These things were officiously loud, and silence was always best.

She gazed at him alluringly and grinned. No further words were necessary.