~...in the midst of that quiet...~

Yesterday, during lab meeting, Katherine read to us a short poem by Charles Simic.

~~~~~

Ghost Stories Written

Ghost stories written as algebraic equations.
Little Emily at the blackboard is very frightened.
The X's look like a graveyard at night.  The teacher
wants her to poke among them with a piece of
chalk.  All the children hold their breath.  The white
chalk squeaks once among the plus and minus
signs, and then it's quiet again.

~~~~~

Which made me think a bit about Simic - which lead me to read a bit of a 2002 dissertation found on-line, "Orphan of Silence:  The Poetry of Charles Simic" by Goran Mijuk - and on page 12, these words of Simic's were shared:

Silence, solitude, what is more essential to the human condition? ‘Maternal silence’ is what I like to call it. Life before the coming of language. That place where we begin to hear the voice of the inanimate. Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

Which made me think about the value of silence in my life.  It is required for real observation I think - essential.

~~~~~

Summer Morning by Charles Simic (from Selected Poems 1963-83)

I love to stay in bed
All morning,
Covers thrown off, naked,
Eyes closed, listening.

Outside they are opening
Their primers
In the little school
Of the corn field.

There's a smell of damp hay,
Of horses, laziness,
Summer sky and eternal life.

I know all the dark places
Where the sun hasn't reached yet,
Where the last cricket
Has just hushed; anthills
Where it sounds like it's raining;
Slumbering spiders spinning wedding dresses.

I pass over the farmhouses
Where the little mouths open to suck,
Barnyards where a man, naked to the waist,
Washes his face and shoulders with a hose,
Where the dishes begin to rattle in the kitchen.

The good tree with its voice
Of a mountain stream
Knows my steps.
It, too, hushes.

I stop and listen:
Somewhere close by
A stone cracks a knuckle,
Another rolls over in its sleep.

I hear a butterfly stirring
Inside a caterpillar,
I hear the dust talking
Of last night's storm.

Further ahead, someone
Even more silent
Passes over the grass
Without bending it.

And all of a sudden!
In the midst of that quiet,
It seems possible
To live simply on this earth.

Comments

[Layanee]

I am learning to be quiet. I think it is my lesson this time around. You are wise.

[jodi]

Quiet is very good sometimes, Pam. I too learn to be quiet--and to listen.

[Benjamin]

I teach--and believe--that the best poems CREATE a spcae of and for silence. In that space or moment, the poem does what only poems can do: launch you deeper into yourself and the world. Poets who do this are James Wright and Mark Strand, among others. If there is no silence or absence in a poem, there is no poem. The poem works for and against this tension of silence vs. sound and meaning, and that's what makes poetry rich. Can you tell I'm passionate about this? Absence. Silence. The beautiful and horrible moments we live for.