Jangle
©December 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Too many words can cloud
A day full of quiet.
Too much quiet can condense
Into a cloud around words.
In the daytime, people are
A jangle of voices, a jostle
Of wrestling minds, striving furiously.
At night, we sleep, restless and lost,
Floating among words that fly
Silently on pale wings through
A hushed, listening sky.
Inside my head is a gong,
And the silence around me
Now rings with it, my skull the bell-tower.
There is no escape, none.
To dissolve, to split into atoms,
To speed away from all parts of me,
So I need not hear myself think –
This is my dream. I need to un-be.
A pearl of great price gleams
Between the lips of silence.
When I was born, and without words,
Was it the silence which formed me?
Out of the darkness comes light.
Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!
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