Silence speaks

There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing.

There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest,
and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city.

There is silence after a rainstorm,
and before a rainstorm,
and these are not the same.

There is the silence of emptiness,
the silence of fear,
the silence of doubt.

There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used,
or from a piano with old dust upon its keys,
or from anything that has answered to the need of a man,
for pleasure or for work.

This kind of silence can speak.

Its voice may be melancholy,
but it is not always so;
for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay.

There is a silence appears like fine flakes at first,
but becoming gradually heavier;
a blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
the ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle,
bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
and iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
with the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees

Whatever the mood or the circumstance,
the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows.

It is a soundless echo.

March 2019 – 湯沢高原スキー場, Tokyo, Japan.