Silence

I have known the silence of the stars and the sea
And the silence of the city when it pauses
And the silence of a man
And the silence for which music alone finds the words
And the silence of the breeze
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language
A beast in the wild moans a few times
When death takes it young
And I am voiceless in the presence of realities
I cannot speak

A curious boy asked an old soldier
Sitting on a porch
How did you lose your leg
And the old soldier is truck with silence
Or his mind flies away
Because he cannot concentrate
It comes back
And he says a bear bit it off
And the boy wonders while the old soldier
Dumbly feebly lives over
The flashes of guns the thunder of cannon
The shrieks
And himself lying on the ground
And the hospital surgeons the knives
And the long days in bed
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist
But if were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe

There is the silence of great hatred
And the silence of even greater love
And the silence of deep peace of mind
And the silence of friendship
There is silence of spiritual crisis
Through which the soul, exclusively tortured
Comes with vision not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life
And the silence of gods who understand each other without speech
There is the silence of defeat
There is the silence of those unjustly punished
And the silence of those dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours
There is the silence between the father and son
When the father  cannot explain his life
Even though the son be misunderstood for it

There is the silence that comes between husband and wife
There is the silence of those who have failed
And the vast silence that covers
Broken leaders and vanquished leaders
Revealing in two words
All sorrow, all hope
And there is the silence of age
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intangible for those who have not  lived
The great range of life

And there is the silence of the dead
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death
Their silence shall be interpreted
As I approach them

- Nirmohi