September 16, 2026

The Purity of Silence

I wrote at the beginning of July about carving out silence.  That silence is a topic that keeps coming back to me, in unexpected ways.

I have been slowly reading, and savoring, an anthology of North American Haiku.  I enjoy the brevity of the form, the simplicity of expression, the images that form in my mind when reading them.  I recently read one by Richard Thompson, which was, “Surrounding the stone         silence”.  Now, for those of you, who like myself, were introduced to haiku in school, this is not the traditional three-line haiku of five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables.  It took me a while in fact to get used to the idea that North American haiku often deviated from that traditional form.  But, as I have made my way through the anthology, I have discovered much richness in expression, even if most often the form is different from what I initially expected.

In any case  -  “Surrounding the stone         silence”  -  struck me.  And, as is often best with poetry, and with haiku in particular, there is no need to explain, to flesh it out, but rather to simply experience it.  I recognized that silence.

Coincidentally, my reading of this haiku came on the same weekend when my wife’s at-large Cherokee group met and hosted an experience with artist Robert Vargas.  You may know him from his large-scale freehand murals and his mixed-media portrait work.  Well, as a way of sharing his process with us, as a way of inviting us in to the experience of creation, he chose one of the group members and created a portrait of that person using charcoal.  There were about forty people in attendance at this event, and as Robert began his process, and as he went about bringing the man’s face to life on that piece of paper, I became aware of the total silence in the room.  No one was talking, no one was popping open a can of soda, no one was hardly moving, save perhaps in trying to get a better view.  There was silence.  There was silence that was at once filled with awe, with respect, with fascination.  It was amazing.