When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. when images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."
Ansel Adams
LISTENING TO THE WILDERNESS
ON A WINTER DAY AT MCDONALD CREEK
On the other side of summer
And its well meaning crowd,
I enter Cold Mountain and the
Stream’s spacious Silence,
And it leads me everywhere
While never once asking for
An account of the world’s
Conduct. The cleansing cedar,
The ice hanging from stream
Side cliffs like falling light, and
The water ouzel busy in the
Creek’s restless current do
Not care who I am, or even
Why I am, but they rejoice
That I too am almost home,
And like Li Po, Tu Fu, and
Wei Ying-wu whose voices
Cascade down the unfathomable
Water, I wander in gratefulness
For the many sounds of Silence.
Bob Muth January 17, 2016
“Silence is not the absence of something,
but the presence
of everything.”
17th Century poem by Henry Vaughann
The unthrift sun shot vital gold,
A thousand, thousand pieces;
And heav'n its azure did unfold Chequer'd with snowy fleeces;
The air was all in spice,
And ev'ry bush
A garland wore:
Thus fed my eyes,
But all the earth lay hush,
Only a little fountain lent
Some use for ears,
And on the dumb shades language spent,
The music of her tears.