-- SO HEAVY, SO LIGHT --
John Herlihy
The silence so heavy,
You could hear the chattering of birdsong.
The silence so light,
You could hear whispers of a temple gong.
The silence so plain,
You could feel its presence all around.
The silence so mysterious,
You could listen to secrets with no sound.
The silence so visible,
You can see it wherever it goes.
The silence so invisible,
It arrives from places that nobody knows.
The silence so deafening,
You can hear the roll of its thunder.
The silence so still,
It fills our hearts with its wonder.
The silence so inviting,
You could be drawn into its midst.
The silence so distant,
You could never hope to fall into its mist.
The silence so false,
Like a fearful thief that flew
The silence so true ,
You always hope to learn what it knew.
- - - - - -
(c) John Herlihy 6 January 2020
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Rebecca
When I was in Bangladesh we were fortunate to have a Morris Minor to take us to the "jungle," some kilometers from the city. When we got there, where my host had camped out amid the tigers in Boy Scouts, he was immensely disappointed. The jungle was gone… Stripped to mere weeds. We returned and drove up to a fish house on a tributary of the Ganges leading to the Delta. When he checked, my host was disappointed to find there were no fish.
But as I waited in the car watching the many boats with white sales plying the river in both directions, with not the sound of a single motor, but only the boats moving up and down in utter silence that gave me a sense of peacefulness that I also felt in the boulevards at night with all of the rickshaws with lanterns hanging, swinging back and forth in a matching rhythm with no sound whatsoever, except, perhaps, the squeaking of wheels or the chatter of riders.
Ron
Sandie