Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:52:22 -0500
From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: A Poem About Silence


I'm just a bottom-feeding philosopher, so I'm in no position to give really
'expert opinions' (I love that apparent oxymoron), but I've read this poem
several times and always feel a bit unsettled by it.  I recognize that there is
some lyrical achievement here, and many of the meanings expressed in it I find
thought provoking, etc.  But there's something anachronistic about the poem, and
anachronistic in a way that (unlike some anachronisms) doesn't 'work' for me. 
Casting about to say exactly what it was I would say that it seems to be a sort
of Romantic, 18th-19th century diction in which one could plausible make the
belief-suspensions  necessary to imagine a worshipper of the Greek gods.  Now
this is probably completely unjustified; what if the poem's date had been 1875? 
Maybe it's really by Emerson or Wordsworth and Michael T. Young is an anagram of
some sort.  Which makes me think about the 'timing' of a poem.

Eric Yost wrote:
> 
> A friend wrote this and gave me permission to forward it to the list.  Any
> feedback would be appreciated!
> Eric
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To Tacita,
> The Muse of Silence
> 
> Mute goddess, keep your peace.  Forgive me still.
> I chatter senselessly believing all
> I say measures precisely what I will.
> Forgive as well this uttered ritual;
> Its praise of you commences with your fall,
> Confining you to prisons of the air:
> To speech and dialogue, to song, to prayer.
> 
> Forgive our cities for expelling you
> >From pecking orders of their great jack hammer,
> Our dictionaries for forgetting you,
> Or so defining both your grace and nature
> The Furies curse us with a proper grammar.
> Forgive, then grant your benediction: pause
> Over the moment, celebrate your cause.
> 
> Let angry men listen and recognize
> Your calm deliberation.  You put on
> The look of thought in every thinker's eyes,
> The wave's ideal in ocean or lagoon.
> Of all forgotten dreams you are the moon
> Lighting the seat of fools gone deaf and blind
> >From baying like wolves at your tranquil mind.
> 
> Those carnivores trust a blood that stings their tongues,
> Poisons the hidden wells of rhetoric,
> Blots the scholar's notes and singer's lungs,
> Strikes dumb the visions of a lunatic.
> Each time time pulses from a heart, clocks tick,
> But no one hears or understands the sense
> Falling between, the pure intelligence.
> 
> Then intimate how meaning overflows
> >From you, the possible, the latent spring.
> Around your slumber symphonists compose
> And disciples of meditation cling,
> Till music hushes the crowd's bickering
> And Buddha, though he hadn't slept for days,
> Wakes up again with sunlight in his eyes.
> 
> 
> Come, teach us of your power to abide,
> Instruct us only as the patient can,
> So we learn patience for the changing tide,
> Endurance for the weather's shifting plan,
> Patience enough to love impatient man,
> And nurture in the quiet light a voice,
> That breaks the silence only to rejoice.
> __________________________________
> 
> copyright 1994 Michael T. Young
> 
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