JL
The Inside of My Lids
Sid Bolotin
I close my eyes, and see
The dark gray of the inside of my lids
Then, released by the shutter
Of eyelids that block the external
Images begin their dance
As my mind unreels its film
Like a VCR on its own autopilot
Rewind, fast forward, pause
“If only” flashbacks
Happy images, peaceful ones
“What if” scenarios
Peek-a-boo into the future
Icons for meditative focus
As real as any movie on the silver screen
My inner orchestra’s sound track explodes
With audio provided by the chattering committee within
Show the film, quiet the clatter
Come back to my breath
Breathe into my heart
Back to the stillness, to no-thing-ness
To the inside of my lids
*** *** *** *** ***
Silent Creation
We’ve all heard the question which asks if there is any sound when a tree falls in a forest with no living creature nearby to hear it. Since sound is the result of vibrations felt on one’s eardrum, the answer seems to be “no” because there were no eardrums available to sense the vibrations. A totally deaf person, standing in the forest, might feel the vibrations, but would hear nothing.
Let’s go back to the beginning, when “chaos” was all there was, and if you are religious, you believe that out of this chaos, the universe and all that is within it was created. If you are not religious and believe that whatever happened to cause the universe to exist must have had a physical or chemical basis, that’s fine too.
The point is, however, that whatever happened occurred without any living creatures being there to hear the vibrations. Certainly the crashing and bursting of celestial bodies, the explosions, and once there was a planet, the rumbling of land masses as they tumbled into shape, colliding and rising and sinking into violent oceans all must have created tremendous vibrations. But there was no one there to hear them.
Today, I believe that scientists can look back and sense what these vibrations must have been by looking at their results. They can retrospectively calculate the force of the vibrations caused by what were literally earth-shattering events.
What you hear (the effect of vibrations upon your eardrums) is really not so important as the vibrations themselves and what caused them. A tree stood in the forest a minute ago and just crashed to the ground. That is what the vibrations caused by its fall represent. Whether an ear did or did not receive them as sound is not so important as the physical act of the tree falling. And so it was at the time of the universe’s silent creation. There may have been fury, but there was no sound.
JL
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