A.E. Stallings - Apr 15, Iyengar III

For Linda Spackman, without whom I would have never learned the word “diacritical”.

Silence

Silence has its own notation: dark

Jottings of duration, but not pitch,

A long black box, or little feathered hitch

Like a new G-reek letter or diacritical mark.

Silence is a function of Time, the lark

In flight but not in song. A nothing which

Keeps secrets or confesses. Pregnant, rich,

Or awkward, cold, the pause that makes us hark,

The space before or after: it's the room

In which melody moves, the medium

Through which thought travels, it is golden, best,

Welcome relief to talk-worn tedium.

Before the word itself, it was the womb.

It has a measure. Music calls it rest.