Silence, who stalks the world with many faces,
Fingering lives and moments without traces,
Altering history with no fingerprints to show,
Hiding events under her spotless snow.

Silence, the echoless void devoid of any sound,
An emptiness within which all living rustlings drowned,
Where all to ear is dead and cold and non-existent,
A baffle to the real and racing, raucous world resistant.

Silence, who whispers in the breeze above the moor
Where wilderness is king and love is unsure,
Where quiet rules and stillness holds proud sway,
The fag-ends of the sounds of yesterday.

Silence in the pauses in the reading of the script
Carrying meaning way beyond the words from which they’re ripped,
Silence in the stark stilled voice which speaks and sings no more
When death’s garrotte cuts off its vibrant roar.

Silence who hides the truth which should be known,
Abetting those who would usurp truth's throne,
Omerta for the mafia and its factions
Which fear the light of sound upon their actions.

Silence who dreads revealing life's true feeling,
Shying away from openly revealing
The depth of love that dares not speak its name
But pirouettes and shrinks before the flame.

Silence, the grotto within the depths of which the grieving hide,
Embracing waves of soothing muteness found inside,
Turning face to wall and closing eyes,
Not seeing, not hearing, not speaking in this cave of sighs.

Silence before the storm and in the aftermath of shock,
Silence trapped between the hard place and the rock.
Silence and strength the measure of the ideal male,
Silence, the guiding light of meditation’s complex trail.

Silence, ubiquitous, multi-faced kaleidoscope of nought,
Tangible, fungible, scented, used but never caught,
Influencing onward from the silence of the womb
Through life into the silence of the tomb.

Silence threatening, silence shaping, silence controlling,
Silence mocking, silence draining, silence consoling,
White filled cavern heavenwards ascending
The symphony of silence, soaring without ending.

April 2006