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We used to dream of visiting Cardiff
The Welsh capital city
Where you went to Uwist university
But I was getting ill
I couldn’t drive there
And your anxiety held me still
We’d go next summer
Before it was too late
But we ran out of time
That was our fate
Never to see the city
Where you studies science
Now there is no visit
Only cold silence.
Where’s he gone? I’ve whistled and shouted him. He was around this morning. He’s probably asleep somewhere. I’ll have to put some food out for him and the other two… Or get some catnip out to attract him. I’m getting worried but I think it’ll be OK. It’s just that feeling of missing something, a silence when you expect noise. I don’t want to lose anything else at the moment. I haven’t heard from a friend recently and I get the same feeling. I’m over thinking probably. Easy to let things get to me. But I don’t want a prodigal cat. X
Do you need a break? From what?
For those that follow my blog you will know I’ve been going through a couple of bad years. I really want things to stop going wrong. I feel like the universe is jumping up and down on my head. I’d like a break. That’s just a few days where I can relax and recover.
Holidays, that’s a word I don’t think I will hear in the future. I have ‘leisure time’ but that’s just sitting being bored because I don’t have anything I can do or want to do. I’ve spent years looking after someone and I’d love to have that responsibility back. The silence is deep sometimes. Thinking is not a ‘break’. We would talk and chat, breaking that silence with serious thoughts or silly humour. I could always make him laugh.. There is no laughter now.
If I’m not about
I’ve not gone
I’m here in your heart
My silence is a quiet breath
A silent prayer
Just know
I’m still there
With you.
Dry as dust
No tears fall
The end of fuss
Cracked and dull
Sadness ends
Emotions pall
Memories shrink
Till nothing at all
Moistens my eyes
My eyelids won’t fall.
I wish I lived in a detached house, not one with thin walls and a neighbour who’s TV is right next to the wall. We don’t complain because he is deaf and I think he would struggle to hear if he moved it anywhere else. Also you don’t want to fall out with your neighbours if you can help it. Most of the time it’s OK, especially when we have our TV on, but sometimes we like to read in silence and then, well if there is a football match on next door the volume is so high that we can tell when someone scores a goal!
I think the volume next door has gradually increased over a few years. You get used to it. But late at night it can also be disturbing. I don’t think there is a solution unless we have noise lowering insulation put in.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is silence. I thought of drawing the universe (space is a vacuum and there is no sound in a vacuum) but this gentle idea came to mind. An old leaf floating in a puddle. Digital drawein photoshop.
There’s a robin singing in the garden at 1.00 am….. Its so quiet I can really hear its liquid song..
Melodic beauty
high and liquid
like tinkling water,
cheering and full of joy.
So quiet at one second,
then a glissando of notes.
Music in nature,
beauty and serenity.
Wonderous gift.
Peace.
I wrote a long piece about this, then I fell asleep, my finger hit the screen and I’ve lost it! I will try and remember what I was saying.
I was bought up in the 60’s and 70’s, when shops closed on a Sunday, people bought enough food to last and put it in the pantry (a small room lined with shelves which was stacked with tins and dry goods).
It was quiet, no one had cars so we would play in the back garden or go to the local park which was a few hundred yards away over the main road. But the road was easy to cross because it wasn’t that busy.
Back to today. I sat in the garden and was surprised to hear birds singing. I think I could recognise about three different songs. They were up a tree at the other end of the garden, normally they would have been drowned out by the road.
Even the rush hour failed to happen. Normally the cars queue on the street waiting to turn into the traffic. Today, one car every few minutes.
The only thing I saw which was wrong was three young men, full of energy, walking together laughing, making fun, striding out. We have been told not to be in groups of more than two. I just worry…
Still, it’s quiet, like an old fashioned Sunday.
There’s a bright star,
high in the sky.
It’s 3am again,
and I’m driven to wake,
to write
Like an owl I stay awake,
listening to cars,
passing.
So few in these days,
often in the past,
there would be footsteps,
or shouting.
Now there is silence,
deep in this city,
only the odd murmur of traffic.
The click and whir of central heating,
the maniacal hum of the fridge,
the oil heater thermostat kicking in.
Freezing night,
3am,
too early for the dawn chorus.
The rest of the city sleeps, perhaps….
Unsettled dreams
Of corn fields,
clay fields,
beaches and trees,
freedom,
escape from imprisonment,
at 3am I shall sleep.
Mallaband-Brown