Silence

 Silence/Griesinger
This is one of the very first pieces I wrote in early 1989 ...April....This is the way it was for me for 6 glorious summers in my Up North Condo.

                                                                  


     What is this silence? It must be what the deaf miss when suddenly they are able to hear. I feel it at dawn. I can actually feel the density of silence before the birds find it. A regal stillness is out there floating...like a queen. The same dignity you see in the gaze of a wise person when they give you a look you can feel.
     Leaving the city and heading north, I pop in a Bob Seger tape and floor past the trucks and vans and grandmother cars. I roll down my windows and turn up the volume. I sing into the wind. Noise is my friend. It makes me feel alive!
     As traffic thins, I notice the quiet under my singing tires. The comforting growl of the rock and roll seems at once intrusive. I pop in a soothing Northern Exposure tape and soon even that is too much. I close the windows and try talk radio for a while, but when the rolling hills of Christmas trees show up and the birch begin to glow, I click the radio off.
     It is now that I feel it. A transformation is taking place. Simplify. Simplify. It is as if I have been cloaked in a garish plaid suit and I have begun to slowly change my clothes...my thoughts. Now I want filmy chiffon flowing, barely touching my body. I want to feel the crisp air on my skin. The car slows and takes the hills gracefully, patiently.
     When the bay rises up to greet me, to smile its glittering welcome, I am as calm as a sunset. My breathing is deep now, and reaches down into my soul and with a sigh sends the jagged impurities out of my body.
     By the time I turn the key in the door of my Northern Michigan home I can sense the silence. A chipmunk scurries through the dried leaves and startles me. A finch waits on a nearby limb. The bleeding heart nods sweetly and a tiny hummer swoops in for a taste.
     I walk into a silent house and listen. The phones are unplugged. I will leave them that way. The TV and stereo are hushed. I open the windows and with the cool breeze comes the conversation of chickadees. I smile and fix myself some tea.
     I take the broom and sweep away the cobwebs. I rake the leaves from around the primrose and wood violets and stand very still and listen to the chopping of the pileated woodpecker. I sigh and know that I am home.
     In the night I sleep with the window wide and the electric blanket on high. At three a.m. I walk to the window and look up at the moon.  "Thank you," I whisper, "Thank you so much..."