La lune est une pleine plage éclairée de silence – voice, narrator & piano

7) silence traverse le vide des voix

recueille les mots des coeurs par l’oreille intérieure

silence parfois s’accroche au téléphone

le silence de ce qui ne peut parler

différent du silence de ce qui peut parler

8) silence appelle sans nommer

silence dialogue avec les solitudes

car silence sait parler avec l’absence

ou partager le souffle de deux respirations

quand nudité habille silence avec des langues mêlées

9) silence ne dort pas

silence écoute les rêves pour les remettre au jour

à son réveil un mot n’en entraîne pas un autre

silence découd le fil du temps pour tisser l’imprévu

silence sectionne les liens du sens pour l’imagination

10) silence compose le poète avec la nuit des mots

sans lyre sans flûte sans conque ni bruit de Pan

la feuille vole au silence son message orphique

cris du dedans cris du dehors

il faut beaucoup de silence aux cris pour devenir un chant

11) là où se cause le silence

silence ne se découvre pas

silence n’annonce pas sa fin

silence n’est jamais le dernier mot

silence ne sait mourir que par le vif d’une voix.

Based on Silence Understood
by Daniel Maximin

in homage to Roberto and Laura Juarroz, Argentinian poets
every sound is a provocation
every word, a burst of violence.
Do not, therefore, collide things,
gather only silences. Roberto Juarroz

1) Silence is not deserted.
Silence offers all its space to time.
A long silence guides the root to the fruit.
The moon is a full beach lit by silence.
The silent bulb sketches pages of bleached night.

2) Silence is never alone.
It is surrounded by very silent words:
Shadow, forgetfulness, the ear.
Trust, the lamp, nudity.
Resistance, thought.

3) Silence is not blind.
Silence speaks as one sees with closed eyes.
Listening separates, silence is sharing.
It answers without question; it can say what it wants.
Silence understands certain misunderstandings.

4) Silence can embody both yes and no.
The transparency of the essential in its non-place.
In every place, silence is upside down.
There is an alphabet of silence,
but we have not learned to spell it.

5) Silence advances between being and name.
Always between emptiness and overflow.
Rebel. to the summons and decrees of the laws
silence crosses lines without passwords
silence guides, as an accomplice, the steps of barefoot freedoms

6) silence eludes minutes of silence
parades and background music
silence compensates for chained speech
and when lips are gagged
silence always finds a wall to erase with talking graffiti

7) silence crosses the void of voices
gathers the words of hearts through the inner ear
silence sometimes clings to the telephone
the silence of that which cannot speak
different from the silence of that which can speak

8) silence calls without naming
silence dialogues with solitudes
for silence knows how to speak with absence
or share the breath of two breaths
when nudity dresses silence with mixed languages

9) silence does not sleep
silence listens to dreams to bring them to light
upon waking, one word does not lead to another
silence unravels the thread of Time to weave the unexpected
Silence severs the bonds of meaning for the imagination

10) Silence composes the poet with the night of words
Without lyre, without flute, without conch shell or sound of Pan
The leaf steals its Orphic message from silence
Cries from within, cries from without
Cries need a lot of silence to become a song

11) Where silence is caused
Silence does not reveal itself
Silence does not announce its end
Silence is never the last word
Silence can only die through the life of a voice.
May 2012