An Exploration of Sound Reveals Silence

Listen:
   Silence, ever present,
Carried by wind as it blows through trees
Hidden between tire tread and asphalt, among the pebbles underfoot.
Can it ever not be so?

One may easily mistake silence for the absence of sound.
But listen again:

In a gently sloping meadow, crowded with life
  - robin, ladybug, squirrel,
     finch, jay, yellowjacket -
Hear the cacophony of voices ebb and flow
Each own a portion to the rest, as shadow to body;
   a quietude augmented, not interrupted.

A metal rake in autumn
Whose tines scrape the sidewalk: ears
Pierced by the silence.

A diesel engine
Thrums and wheezes, asthmatic from his own blue smoke.
A constant clatter, and yet
beneath it, somehow, the silence still there
 Like sunlight through misty leaves.