{"id":4849,"date":"2009-06-19T06:56:02","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T10:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2009-08-28T15:31:58","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T19:31:58","slug":"writing-and-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/writing-and-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing and Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Thomas Merton<\/a>, Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Silence<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
\nAnd the silence of the city when it pauses,
\nAnd the silence of a man and a maid,
\nAnd the silence of the sick
\nWhen their eyes roam about the room.
\nAnd I ask: For the depths,
\nOf what use is language?
\nA beast of the field moans a few times
\nWhen death takes its young.
\nAnd we are voiceless in the presence of realities —
\nWe cannot speak.<\/p>\n

A curious boy asks an old soldier
\nSitting in front of the grocery store,
\n“How did you lose your leg?”
\nAnd the old soldier is struck with silence,
\nOr his mind flies away
\nBecause he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
\nIt comes back jocosely
\nAnd he says, “A bear bit it off.”
\nAnd the boy wonders, while the old soldier
\nDumbly, feebly lives over
\nThe flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
\nThe shrieks of the slain,
\nAnd himself lying on the ground,
\nAnd the hospital surgeons, the knives,
\nAnd the long days in bed.
\nBut if he could describe it all
\nHe would be an artist.
\nBut if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
\nWhich he could not describe.<\/p>\n

There is the silence of a great hatred,
\nAnd the silence of a great love,
\nAnd the silence of an embittered friendship.
\nThere is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
\nThrough which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
\nComes with visions not to be uttered
\nInto a realm of higher life.
\nThere is the silence of defeat.
\nThere is the silence of those unjustly punished;
\nAnd the silence of the dying whose hand
\nSuddenly grips yours.
\nThere is the silence between father and son,
\nWhen the father cannot explain his life,
\nEven though he be misunderstood for it.<\/p>\n

There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
\nThere is the silence of those who have failed;
\nAnd the vast silence that covers
\nBroken nations and vanquished leaders.
\nThere is the silence of Lincoln,
\nThinking of the poverty of his youth.
\nAnd the silence of Napoleon
\nAfter Waterloo.
\nAnd the silence of Jeanne d’Arc
\nSaying amid the flames, “Bless\u00e9d Jesus” —
\nRevealing in two words all sorrows, all hope.
\nAnd there is the silence of age,
\nToo full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
\nIn words intelligible to those who have not lived
\nThe great range of life.<\/p>\n

And there is the silence of the dead.
\nIf we who are in life cannot speak
\nOf profound experiences,
\nWhy do you marvel that the dead
\nDo not tell you of death?
\nTheir silence shall be interpreted
\nAs we approach them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(by Edgar Lee Masters, about whom I first wrote not quite a year ago<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Also not from whiskey river<\/em>, but three related thoughts from Thomas Merton, over the years:<\/p>\n

I am finding myself forced to admit that my lamentations about my writing job have been foolish. At the moment the writing is the one thing that gives me access to some real silence and solitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Merton, Journal Entry, July 20, 1949<\/em>)<\/p>\n

The best thing for me is a lucid silence that does not even imagine it speaks to anybody. A silence in which I see no interlocutor, frame no message for anyone, formulate no word either for man or paper. There will still be plenty to say when the time comes to write, and what is written will be simpler and more fruitful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Merton, Journal Entry, December 14, 1949<\/em>)<\/p>\n

This idea of a “writing career” which begins somewhere and ends somewhere is also a beautifully stupid fiction. Yet I can comfort myself with the idea that St. Thomas occupied his mind with it for a while, when he was my age. He told his secretary and biographer Reginald that if his days as a writer and teacher were over, then he wanted to die fast. I don’t feel that way about it. And I don’t feel that my days as a writer are over. I don’t care where they are. The point for me is that I must stop trying to adjust myself to the fact that night will come and the work will end. So night comes. Then what? You sit in the dark. What is wrong with that? Meanwhile, it is time to give to others whatever I have to give and not reflect on it. I wish I had learned the knack of doing this without question or care. Perhaps I can begin. It is a matter of truth, and patience, and humility. Stop trying to “adjust.”<\/p>\n

Adjust to what? To the general fiction?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander<\/em>, 1966)<\/p>\n

Finally, one of my favorite opening-credits sequence of all time, from The Graduate<\/em>:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

(Damn. Now I’ve got to add that<\/em> to my Netflix queue…)
\n______________________<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> The image at the top of this post is a photograph of the writing room on Deck A of the Hindenburg<\/em> airship. Around the walls were muted watercolors by the artist and graphic designer Otto Arpke, such as these:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure this was a tranquil place in which to write, and I’m equally sure I’m glad never to have written there.<\/p>\n

Found these images, among many others, at the page about the Hindenburg’s interiors<\/a> at the very interesting Airships: A Zeppelin History Site<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From whiskey river: Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[410,247,1393,53,74,5,251],"tags":[178,325,559,1288,1289,1290,1291],"class_list":{"0":"post-4849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-hearing","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-movies-media","10":"category-music","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-whiskey-river","14":"tag-thomas-merton","15":"tag-silence","16":"tag-edgar-lee-masters","17":"tag-the-graduate","18":"tag-the-sound-of-silence","19":"tag-the-hindenburg","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-1gd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4861,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions\/4861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}