Behind the hiss and ring that is the damage I have done
in the brash ensembles of my foolish hours lies a stillness
I may never touch again, though I know too, as John Cage
says, none alive touches true stillness and survives. There
will always be a hum of nerves, without which silence goes
unheard, however presupposed, half a figure, half a ground,
the shadow of a voice, a cry, perhaps, or, if we listen deeper,
a sonic landscape. Silence as the ghost that walks the long
white halls of paradise or intensive care, knocking on doors
no one answers, looking into rooms with breathing machines
whose oceans are bottomless, dark, and darkly engineered
to put the tormented ear to sleep, because they are not there.