I want to clear out all the other voices, all the other mumblings that are bouncing around in my head. I don't want to know what Ali Velshi thinks about the economy, nor do I want to hear Tom Ashbrook theorize about the death of Walter Cronkite as the death of a whole era of American goodness. I don't want to hear my heart aching, just for today - it's all I ask, just for a day, just for one small, simple day.
Sometimes I can't figure out which voice is mine in all this clamouring, and I just want to hear the voice of a bird, or a flock of birds, or the voice of the wind - the way it sounds playing in live oak leaves, or shaking the blooms of the crepe myrtle trees, their seeds gently clicking as they hit the sidewalk or the street.
Anything but this. Anything but this hellish, wailing din of thoughts that have been revving since I woke up today. I just want to hear a seagull screaming, or maybe two, and the wakes pulling back, pushing forward, pulling back, pushing forward. Water swishing. Small grains of sand. The drowning out of all of this needless turmoil - all these voices and questions and longings - I want to hear the blue and green and gray world around me, beating like a heart or a drum or like a pair of hummingbird wings, and the way they thud and buzz at the same time, a thousand times per minute.
I just want to hear the sunlight.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You cannot hear sunlight, silly. You must mean see. Or feel. Or taste. Or smell. Anything but hear. Don't be so silly.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to this post so much. I have the exact same notions at times, as far as I can tell. Perhaps they're actually very different in ways I cannot fathom. Who knows.
My point is simply that this is lovely.
Hello, Poe.
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteYou SO TOTALLY can hear the sunlight. It sounds like nothing. Or maybe it sounds a little bit like time standing still. It also sort of sounds like a flash of lightning before the thunder. You know, that sort of sound, peaceful and striking.
That's my favorite line of course: I want to hear the sunshine. A poet's line. I use birdsong and breeze to ground me like a mantra. A monk once taught me this blessing by Emily Dickinson: In the name of the butterflies, bees, and the breeze.
ReplyDeleteHi Colleen,
ReplyDeleteEmily Dickinson was one of those people who just did not belong on this planet because she was too beautiful.
I love that mantra. I'm going to start using it, I love the innocence it fosters.