Thursday 22 October 2009

Silence


If a word were to be described by stating the negative of its opposite, then silence would be known as absence of speech.

All those blessed with this virtue, know that the absence of speech is often more expressive than words could be. They are moreover, content, not handicapped by the compulsive desire to speak requiring the crutch of ever-available speech. They are the calmest people I have ever known.

Perhaps, like some ancient form learnt only through a long arduous discipline, speech and silence maybe practiced too. But paradoxically, words are required to tell of silence.



An Ode to Silence


Bereft of calm

On torrid eves

We seek solace in words,

Writing a mask

For a silence

Which tells of our hollow faces.



But true silence,

Is a word

Which speaks itself

By saying

Nothing at all.

Not a riddle to

Puzzle the hours away,

But a teller of a calm ecstasy,

Not in need

Of an orgasm of words.


Sometimes

She talks

To hide,

To shatter

The silence

Too cold

Too cutting.

Words are the masks

She writes.


But a wise one counsels,

Silence is a call

To speak

Without words

Overheard by no

‘Eves’-dropping

Snake in Eden.


A beauty

Grown

In cloister.

EXPECTATION


How cruel is expectation,

Holding desires captive to another’s will.

Hung in a lacunae

In between a nascent possibility

And a nihilistic impossibility.