Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, Because a vision softly creeping, Left its seeds while I was sleeping, And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone, 'Neath the halo of a street lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dare Disturb the sound of silence.
'Fools' said I, 'You do not know Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you, Take my arms that I might reach you.' But my words like silent raindrops fell, And echoed In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made. And the sign flashed out its warning, In the words that it was forming. And the sign said, 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls.' And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
There is the kind of silence you hear when the kids leave the house, the husnabd is gone, and the pets are asleep. It’s the kind of silence you can feel rather than just hear. It feels like open space, a summer sky, a warm breeze that is too gentle to rustle any leaves but just lightly bends the long arcs of ripe grass. It feels like an exhale that doesn’t end. It feels like the grief that comes when the tide goes out and all those rocks become exposed. There is the kind of silence that is loud, screaming, painful, wrought with guilt and shame and pity and aching. The silence after I speak my truth to my mother and she is biting her tongue. Or, more often, the silence that stretches after she hasn’t bit her tongue and then I am not saying anymore. That is bitter silence, swallowed, that leaves a stain in my mouth and is hard to remove from my tongue. It’s the silence that hurts in my belly, a clench, something hard and tight that I’ve allowed myself to believe is not real or doesn’t matter.There is the kind of silence that is soft. A clicking clock somewhere back there, the warm sun ray slowly moving across the bed, a heap of sheets and blankets and comforters cocooning our warmth, a soft snore from you, the dog stretching before he circles again to nestle down. Some other neighbor dog far away barks, but not loud enough to break our silence, a moment suspended, another Saturday morning blessed with no schedule and kids actually playing quietly and no rush for anything. There is the kind of silence that is waiting. A doctor’s office, the beeping of machines somewhere else, the turning of magazine pages by the only other stranger there who we don’t speak to. This is not the usual well-child check waiting room; there is no small talk, no bustle of appointments being called and healthy people leaving with a smile. This is the silence of the waiting room while your mother is upstairs having her skull cut into with a saw to remove a tumor that would otherwise kill her within the year. This is the silence between uneaten bites of the tuna sandwich, between the playing cards we fake gin rummy with—my sister, dad, and me at the smooth table in a semi-circle. This is the silence of five hours with no control, no value to worry, no room for hope. This is the silence of our mortality. There is the kind of silence of the keyboard when the brain has nothing to offer. When inspiration dries up as bare as the basin of Death Valley and no sentence, word, keystroke can be mustered. The silent computer clock bumps its numbers in a mocking gesture—Why waste your time? What are you doing this for anyway? See, you can’t even write a single letter! There is the kind of silence when the mind is so tired and so blank it can’t string together any meaning, any story, any line. There is the silence of writer’s block, so profound it’s as if a steel door has slammed shut, cutting off any vision of direction or potential for words. Expressionless. Empty. A blank page with no beginning.
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