I

Silence has a quality that's all its own.
Yet listen closely and you will hear faint hints of subtle music
Where sound gives shape to silence, to lovely arabesques of emptiness
That dazzle eye and ear.

The silence of the snow greets the sun's rays
With a frigid shoulder, cold and unexpected,
That melts, yields for but the slightest moment,
Then turns to hardened ice.
The coldest kind of all!

A head hangs low: discard it, it's a mere observer,
And of no consequence to you!
Wait for the echoing gesture of the snowdrops
Breaking through the snow that you shall surely see.

The sun persists. And slowly, almost unnoticeably,
Liquidity again begins to reign.
Tis a quality, not a substance,
Yet more real than real can be.

Tender wetness and the softest hints of early sound are heard,
A faint flute sound, a reed flute, slow, fragile, and nearly imperceptible,
Pervades the chilly air, the attentive ear,
And dances deft and lightly on the dull coldness that it lights upon.

What do you think?
Have we gone daft?
Is it the madness of imagination toying with disaster?
So finely honed a knife shall surely turn the trick!

A golden flute joins in,
A flirtatious piccolo plays around the edges of the pantomime;
The hardness of the ice begins to soften,
Then weeps farewell to mute frigidity.

A lone, silver horn moans out the sweet sadness of the dying snow.

II

Kettledrums echo the terrifying sounds of the rumbling creek.

The flow had started only as a gentle trickle
And waffled for a while, between suppleness and hardness.

But as the sun persisted in its melody of calls and dares,
And jokes and songs; and pretended inattentiveness
To give the gift of melting lover to the chilly snow,
And thus itself become the victim, the done to,
And receptively take on the passive role of loved,
The whiteness of the snow broke blood from its opacity
And flowed translucent rivulets, reflected rainbows, crystal echoes,
Illuminating all and every that it wet.

And there blared golden horns, piercing the air
As sun and snow now fiercely mated,
Thus each became another thing, melding their union
Into the sound of the crashing river's birth,
Then thinning out, spreading across great plains, the high-pitched sounds
Of birds and violins are heard, then deeper sounds easing into gullies
Made by cellos taking charge,
And orchestral compatriots join in and add their nuance
To the single, floating notes describing complex wonders
That speak stories of adventure and great passion and the deepest love
That can ever cast itself upon the sea.

And all has taken place within the realm of utmost silence.

© 2004__Muldoon Elder