When did we become...?
The pull to exist in the dark of silence awoke my sleep. I lay outside, prostrate on man-made materials observing those which are not.
In humans, hearing begins circa 18-20 weeks gestation. Sound waves waltz 1,510 meters per second in the womb, much faster than the 346 meters per second once introduced to our air.
Drawing by Jack J. Kunz
Sound travels, membranes vibrate, bones amplify, fluid moves, impulses are transmitted, the brain analyzes and decodes, sound is heard.
So why does it appear that so few of us listen?
The stillness of night is anything but still, the ebb and flow of the earth’s roar. Many speak of wind, its majestic strength arrives unannounced, descending from atmospheric thrones. Lungs as far as the east is from the west. Inhale and exhale, no permission asked, no apology. Trees bow in its presence. The wind groans amongst the branches, between the seeds, foreplay for the spring buds close to term. It circles my body while I lay eavesdropping on the nuance of its dialect. It is of no consequence, my lack of understanding; foolish to presume beauty needs to be seen or understood to prove its lineage. I once cared for a man whose Love told me he would call rocks beautiful… he could smell them. A geologist by trade, he proved his mastery during an excavation. The man unearthed several similar stones, setting them aside. When a peer questioned his olfactory barometer he gathered a chisel. Displaying a casual precision, he struck the rock true, revealing a geode containing rarely seen minerals.
The wind continues, speaking in moans and whispers, not unlike yesterday now put to rest. Are you also? Put to rest I mean… the one I poured my strength into. Your neighbors questioned the sound of death and howling, peering through their casement window left ajar. The howling and the banging of a flagpole halyard begging for attention; flag at half mast, lamenting yet another man-made tragedy. The howling and the banging as I watch your mottling advance like a spilt glass of thickened water. The wind initiating the introductions, valet to your homeland.
Your family had predetermined you would be put to the fire before taking you home. Ashes draw less attention when engaging in public transportation. Did your family sleep last night I wonder? This morning, swollen eyes that in time will accept, but will never accept. I shielded them with my body when your bile and the blood came. Images that I stole, giving them less… so they could leave with more.
I sit with these memories as I do with all, giving them space until they politely excuse themselves. They never truly go. I direct my previous question inward: do I take the time to hear… to listen? I look to the stars with a quarried expression, a dog with tilted head perplexed.
A beating rhythm begins softly cutting through the accusatory threats of my tinnitus, a whirlybird in the distance closing in. This sight often seen over our house, a child in need of darning and me in the flight path.
My internal metronome quickens, its cadence dropped occasionally. Emotions still thawing from the day before and now this aircraft above, a tragedy in transport. The two events meld into a heterogenous consistency much like the partial beating of an egg, just before the sizzle, a pad of butter testing the heat. I rise to my feet and dance the wind.
Wind that caresses a body in motion, across still and tumultuous water alike. Wind that purifies the land. Wind that only yesterday, flaunted its strength, disfiguring steel forged by fire. Fire… another mystery that consumes both poets and buildings alike. A destroyer and purifier simultaneously, unwilling to be judged innocent or guilty, it just is.
I have asked before and now again. When did we become a people that no longer rejoice in the unknown? Or in the simple, an act of unsolicited kindness, a subtle nod from a stranger, knowing the chemical composition of dirt, your dirt, the earth we all are to become? Most ask questions in rhetorical form, minds made up, holding jaundiced truth behind their backs like weapons in waiting. Am I the only one tired?
Suddenly these tangled bits of yarn are swept away by the whirly-bird directly above. Looking to the sky I weep, for everything and for nothing. For the living and the living dead, for the child above and the one tucked in snugly, for electricity and the fire that it brings, for the squirrels sleeping in the tree and the corpse of their sibling that I found on the earth’s floor, for the grey produced when mixing alizarin crimson and viridian. A simple beauty that embarrassingly, once brought me to tears. A mixing of two pigments, the blending of a color as unique as the snowflake, both loved and hated.
Snow
Loved by the child, those childish of heart
On the day of my birth, soon must part
Hated by rhizomes, the aging thin-boned
those who long for the touch of rotary telephones
Artwork by Jules Erbit, 1945
Telephones, sounds, transmissions, hearing. The malleus, the incus, the stapes. I’ve held those three virtuosi in my hand…weightless, their vibrations electrified by the breeze, whispers of eternity amongst our bones. Propeller blades cut above my head; beauty and grief courting one another in the sky.
I gather what strength remains and whisper a prayer to the sky. To the whirlybird, to everything and to nothing, that no one will soon hear…
or will they?
I have had an increase in people stopping by to read my posts and I wanted to thank you. I do not post on a particular schedule as work and other hobbies vie for my attention (turning wood is one).
While it is intimidating to post on a platform alongside such high-caliber writers, I appreciate the space to share some of the stories I have the privilege of walking alongside.