Sounds Break the Stillness

In the stillness of long winter days, sounds play an important role. One listens for the howl of the wind, crunching footsteps against a frozen earth, or the ping of rain as it hits the house. Laughter from children sledding or snowman making nourishes a neighborhood while shovels hit against snowy paths. Sounds break the stillness and interrupt winter's sleep. 

Today, I honor the 2015 Sounds Poem Project at Author Amok's site. While I have not officially participated in the daily writing ritual I have followed the poetry trail and resurrected some of my scraps of paper with random scribblings. I am intrigued by the sounds of winter this season and so to Laura I dedicate these two pieces.

#1 is based upon the water wheel sound challenge. My mind wandered back to a small town in Pennsylvania that my family traveled to for a few vacations. There was a restaurant in the town that originally was a mill. The water wheel fascinated my children when they were little. When I heard the sound prompt, my mind wandered back to those days over twenty years ago.

Stillness

There is a sudden stillness 

    of the wheel

      churning, 
                     swishing along,

                                      moving past 
                                                       yesterdays,

while 

     leaning into 
       spaces of silence 
                    fashioned by the daily 
                                      whoosh 

    of automative reverberations 

                    echoing in the 
                                      stillness of 
                                                        cascading memories.

Carol Varsalona © All Rights Reserved


#2

Flight

Listening,
sounds reverberate-
Ballet shoes
-flying-
-dropping-
pure motion in air
intersected 
-zips of whizzing noises-
ascending 
in the dancer's descent
breaking the flow 
of
patterned feet. 

Carol Varsalona © All Rights Reserved

Now I take you to a poem written by Billy Collins that resonated with me. You can listen to the poem being read at the Poetry Foundation.

Silence

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen,

a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—

the silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

Lastly, I would ask that all who read this post consider listening for the sounds of winter calling you to reflect and write.  Join me in celebrating this season that may be giving us blasts of Arctic air on a daily basis but also provides us with the scenery, images, and sounds to write about. Offerings for the Winter Whisperings Gallery are due by the first week of March.

Now, please stroll over to Teacher Dance where Linda Baie is waiting to greet all of her Poetry Friday guests this week.