The Sound of Silence

Magnolia in the wind, early evening.

This ringing in my ears stills while the wind blows through the magnolia. The magnolia pods bound down the roof; its dry leaves drift from the roof’s ridge through roof’s valley, over the eaves, into the garden below. Hours later as the wind quiets down in the night, a few gray birds call out when the parrots and mockingbirds have found their quiet time elsewhere. In these late, late night hours, these gray morning doves’ calm cooing lingers. If I only could sing their songs.

As morning comes and warms the cool chill of night and the moon wanes, the warbles and chirps and flutterings again fill my lemon tree and the avocado branches and the space between those trees and me. And I listen as I cling to the easy light of day. Their songs fill my hours over coffee, the back door open, the dog going in and out.

Later, the voices and faces of newscasters and pundits and pod/vod-casters showcase their messages. One-sided conversations. Voices in the air. Sweet thoughts. And later, in sequestered moments, I hear my gentle tapping, fingertips on the keyboard. Those words only sound their way along paths in my mind. And the ghost voices on screens do not respond. And I begin to not respond to them. But I listen. Only listen. And listen, and listen.

Selah.

Is this the sound of silence Simon and Garfunkel sang about decades ago? The syllables that go out but do not return?

I am growing accustomed to this air around me. To the way it slips past the clock without notice. To the way it fills one room and the next and the one beyond. This stillness, these walls, this rampant disease in the distance, they are befriending me. Strangely, they are becoming the usual, the known, the customary ways of one day after another, and this is becoming my life.

What I dream, what I write, what I draw, what I think now has become constrained, distilled, by this detour. This detour tethered to me is becoming part of me. Re-shaping me. And the long silent road ahead. Just outside my door. That is outside my reach.

Is this the song of the anchoress, the woman devoted to survival? Is this what is ringing in my ears?

And now, night is here again. And I’ll open my window and wait for the doves to return, to sit atop the block wall that surrounds my house.