I’ll take quiet, please

Yesterday at the dentist’s in the City,
the assistant asked me if I’d like music or silence.

[silence 2 seconds]

I said music was fine,
it being December and all
and her looking like she needed Muzak.

[silence 6 seconds]

But, this morning,
just before 8,
before anyone else had risen
I watched the sun breaking through clouds in the east
and heard the silence that filled the sunroom in our beach cottage,
far from the City.

[silence 4 seconds]

The silence, unlike sound,
had no direction, no duration,
no variation in pitch or intensity.

[silence 2 seconds]

Silence provided nothing to divert me from the troubles of my soul.

[silence 2 seconds]

When I asked the silence when will I die?

[silence 1 second]

it had no reply.

Did I waste my life?

[silence 1 second]

no reply

or was I happy?

[silence 1 second]

no reply.

Until, looking, once again, through the windows
to the sun as it climbed over the trees in our neighbor’s yard,

[silence 2 seconds]

silence

[silence 2 seconds]

let me see the patterns of micro-frost
in the interstitial layers of our storm window
where the insulating argon gas had dissipated.

[silence 4 seconds]

I had never noticed this before
during the noise of day.

[silence 6 seconds]

It was only

[silence 2 seconds]

quiet

[silence 2 seconds]

that enabled me to see
the filamentary work of the universe

[silence 10 seconds]

that is everywhere.