I revel in the silence
Of no sound
Feeling the quiet
Wrap gently around me
Free, unbound
Like softly falling snow
I hear only
The in and out of breath
Peace
Floating above the chatter
Leaving behind
The noisy din of life
Snuggling in rapturous
Stillness.
I wrote this poem a few months ago. It is nearly impossible to escape the noise pollution of our modern world. Construction noise, the drone of traffic on the highway, trains, planes, dogs barking, children screaming, televisions and radios blaring, phones ringing, appliances beeping, refrigerators humming, air conditioners droning, furnaces spewing, lawn mowers, string trimmers, power saws, motorcycles, snow blowers, and our own voices inside of our heads that never stop talking, are just a small sampling of those things that interrupt the quietude of life.
In large cities, most people have devised ways to block out some of the incessant noise, usually by creating more noise to “drown out” the ones they prefer not to hear. How is this affecting our mental health? Have any studies been done? When we know that dogs and other animals have hearing capabilities far greater than our own, how do they cope in our noisy world?
Those who have worked around loud machinery or loud music for many years, later suffer from hearing loss. I cannot help wondering if those who are born deaf have been given a blessing. We can clean up our air and we can clean up our water. We can stop polluting our soil, too. But how do we diminish the unremitting noise?
Unlike most people, I find that I crave the quiet. Whenever I have been exposed to too much noise, I find even the beautiful classical music, or new age “relaxing” music to be too much. It is easier, although not impossible, to access the stillness within me without life’s noisy distractions. Silence is golden.
