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| Sometimes silence looks like light. |
Today’s prompt may seem like a strange choice: how can we
write poetry based in silence? Isn’t silence a place without words and
language?
Yes.
What I would like you to try on is this: settling into
internal quiet, stillness, silence, in order to fully experience whatever wants
to be experienced through you.
I know, that may sound like gobbledy gook at first– but please
trust me.
Right now I hear noise. I hear a dog barking, the television
from someplace in the house, a hum of a car’s engine, another dog parking, a
train whistle in the distance. I hear my fingers on the keyboard. There were
times in elementary school I remember looking for noise so intensely I heard a
single tick of the clock.
There is comfort in noise. Sometimes we may say we turn on
the television or radio for “company”.
What if instead you chose to experience silence instead?
Soon you would discover there are all sorts of sounds you can’t hear when all
that static stands between you and the sounds underneath the noise.
Here’s what I would love for you to try – and if you aren’t
able to try it – write about noise. Devote yourself to noise, noisyness, sound
clutter, cacophony.
Please read these quotes for further
inspiration:
“I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and
learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
Chaim Potok
“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the
pattern improves.”
Rumi
“I love your silences, they are like mine. You are the only
being before whom I am not distressed by my own silences. You have a vehement
silence, one feels it is charged with essences, it is a strangely alive
silence, like a trap open over a well, from which one can hear the secret
murmur of the earth itself.”
Anais Nin
“Silence is a source of Great Strength.”
Lao Tzu
“From
wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.”
May Sarton
“Listen closely... the eternal hush of silence goes on and
on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is
because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the
everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.”
Jack Kerouac
Now, for those brave ones out there:
Look around your surroundings and choose something to gaze
upon.
I might choose, for example, a bouquet of paper roses, a
painting of the universe over my computer screen, a lamp, a pencil sharpener, a
mug of coffee. Anything motionless will work – unless you are looking at a
river or an ocean, things that move but have a very quieting effect even while
creating sound.
How to do this?
1.
Set a timer – your kitchen timer, cell phone
timer or one on your computer will work.
2. Turn away from any distractions and gaze at your
chosen object
3. If your mind begins to chatter, take a deep breath
and whisper “silence” into your mind
4.
On any occasion of thoughts drifting or eyes
leaving the object, whisper “silence” into your mind and take a series of
breaths, repeating “silence each time.
5. Allow your full attention to be on the object
you are gazing upon.
When the five minutes are over and the timer
rings, scribble some first impressions and allow those impressions to be the
foundation of your poem.
Word Prompt:
Silence
Sentence starter prompts:
When I listen to silence, I (see, hear, smell, taste, feel,
sense….)
I gaze at ____ in silence and for the first time I notice.....
I remember a poster my father bought for my mother when I was a little girl. The first line said, "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember the peace there may be in silence."
Enjoy this time of silence today.
-- Julie Jordan Scott
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