Hymns To the Silence

I have always been a great fan of what is undoubtedly
one of the best albums I have ever heard:
"Van Morrison's Hymns to the silence"

And for the past few days, I've been thinking a lot
about silence, stillness, and all that comes with it..
so although it's an AMAZING album, and I love it...

This isn't a tribute to Mr. Morrison's work..
it's a tribute.. or something.. to the silence :)


I cried out across the waters of silence
Searching for a point of reference on the horizon,
A familiar face or shoreline to show me how far I had traveled,

But no wandering soul in that silence called out to me,
And though I strained my eyes to see through
The icy blackness of the silence,

No harbor lights shone to guide me,
I felt nothing underneath me, but rivers of icy black,
That pierced the soles of my feet and chilled my legs to the bone

And above me, that same dark and cold penetrated my head,
And froze my thoughts in that still dark, silent moment.
I raged against the silence, shouting until my voice was hoarse,

And realized that the silence took my words and dissolved them
Like a single snowflake as it lands on the warm black asphalt
At the beginning of winter, I too was absorbed by the black,
Adsorbed by the silence.

I felt it’s fingers clutch at my remaining thoughts,
Pulling from me every emotion, every concept that was me,
And I struggled to hold on as I stood there..

And then in an instant it was over..
the icy hand of the silence
swept over me like a cloak, and in one movement it
took me down into itself, and I became still..


There was nothing to fight, for as much as I was there before,
I was gone now.. as much as the silence had been waiting before me,
I was now part of it.
Seamlessly moving though a void of eternal dimensions,

Concepts of boundaries that I had cherished and regulated,
Concepts of time, space and reality,
They were all different now,
I was one.. one with the most magnificent..
The most magnificent nothing… and I felt the pure dark energy

The energy of night, the energy of an ethereal entity
Which stretched across the ages..
That touched all, and all touched it..
In that moment, I was no longer searching for the shoreline,
For I touched all shorelines that had ever been,
I had no need for the lights from a single harbor, for I wandered simultaneously along every dock, and I felt the brick and paint of every house..

I touched every heart and mind, every leaf and rock was my home…
I had never felt so much loss of self,
So much destruction of all that I was…

Yet I had never imagined so much power,,
The unstoppable force of an indescribable energy.

A moment, and it was gone.. the cloak had lifted and I stood,
As a young man, under the streetlight,
Not far from my home..

I heard a car horn on the street not far away,
And I felt a surge of relief
That I was here, and now…

Yet I felt greater, a loss for the stillness and sanctity of that moment,
I felt as though I had lost.. I had lost something that
Was part of me, part of my soul..
Part of the silence that is within all of us had gone..

And although I would not have ever imagined
Wishing for the blackness to return…
I turned towards home,
Pushed my hands deep into my pockets to fight the cold

And as I wandered homeward, I sang hymns to the silence.