Echoes of Silence
by Odin Roark

Like any sentient tool,
stillness too requires maintenance,
exorcizing the compressed timbre,
making room for fresh internments.

Reluctantly, quietude becomes
fearful of reviewing archived memories,
where muzzled fright
holds firm its raw history,
reminding closed eyes
mind’s soundless attic
is where secret echoes hide.

Innocent once…

The sonance of birth begins the unsettling journey,
as first light shatters the tranquility of safety,
time’s anxious intimation of breath’s entrance,
that mere moments before
was cradled in bellows of warmth.

Swiftly…

Reality’s introduction into guilt
begins its involuntary reaction;
the holding of confused breath
while a caregiver wipes away nature’s calling,
patting talcum on reddening awareness.

Voluntary silence begins
after classroom pranks,
discovered bedroom secrets,
bringing teacher/parent demands for answers,
met with denying shrugs and noiseless expressions.

Further on…

Resonance catapulting life waning,
closely guarded concealment of aging parts,
tumble outside time’s perpetual genesis,
anticipating what lies beyond maintenance.

Duration brings deafening silence,
density’s midlife,
when loss of youth,
raised children,
weariness and regrets
seal viability with retirement
and wall-staring.

Exhausted…

Finality gathers its withered senses together
and shuffles through remaining noise unfazed,
its resistance now untethered.

Yet…

How blissful the exception,
that never-die awareness appreciating quiescence,
yet determining delicate porch chimes will still be heard,
that nature’s fresh air will continue whispering through hanging raindrops,
repeating an all encompassing sensorial reflection of what was,
what is,
and the magic that for some
transmutes noise into gold dust of calm,
coating the impending darkness with the murmur of glittering peace.