Meditating on Silence

Sometimes the oracle gives counsel
not to speak, and intimates
that it is well
to still the voice of consciousness -
its switchboard overwhelmed
with calls, making it difficult
to hear the blood-tide's whisper
in the ear, the frequencies
of distant spheres, the bells
from limestone island hills,
the future asking to be sensed.

The other, incoherent voice,
half-muffled in its humid cell
behind restraining bars of ribs
refuses to be reasoned with.
It sings, mostly inaudibly,
of meteoric energies,
and our experiential schism -
matter alien to stars,
the Moon and Mercury and Mars -
the old religious dialogue
transposed to cosmic interface
where flesh meets mind
that knows no bounds,
and yet must reach
a compromise.

How many generations
before humans transcend gravity?
How many metamorphoses
before we roam our galaxy?
We must liberate each other first,
and make peace with the earth.

How silent is the Moon,
of all oceans the hegemon,
whose magnetism governs
ebb and spate? The planet
which is silent as the tomb
and dry rules water's fate,
and governs all the inner currents
known to women and the muse.

To be as silent as the Moon,
as preternaturally tranquil,
listening for what traverses 
cosmic thresholds yet undreamt -
the sublimated music of the psyche
in the Age of Space.