Listen to audio
“ The Sound of Silence ”
– a blissful pleasure – revisited –
Ah to be free
Of obstreperous sounds,
Man’s din vociferous
That so abounds,
Ever torturing
An anguished ear
Implied inured,
We’re made to hear
Too far beyond,
Man meant endure…
Oh for the sound
Of deafening stillness,
A resounding calm
Of blissful pleasure,
In the healing balm
Of echoing silence,
You can almost hear
From the quiet whisper
Of a falling tear,
For the sound of silence!
Music, Laburnum by Kai Engel
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Poetry on a canapé 
“Oh for the sound
Of deafening stillness,
A resounding calm
Of blissful pleasure,
In the healing balm
Of echoing silence,”
There is a sound of silence. When I lived in Northern Manitoba where silence was everywhere in the bush. But there was still a sound and I thought that the sky was talking to the trees. Years later I found that Space has a sound because of gravitational waves. A wonderful poem, Jean-Jacques!
I was a big city born, understanding the elements of such, nurturing on the ever-active lives in and out of oneself, of one’s surroundings, dwellings, acquaintances and complete privacy. Only knowing someone you chose, be it an immediate neighbour or across the world. That compared to living in a small town is the ultimate in privacy. If you are born into it, that is one’s life way for better or for worse. Thus there, and under such circumstances, is where you truly learn to understand, appreciate and cherish, the sound of silence… Thank you, Rebecca for reminding me that the sky did talk to the trees, which it did so in Huntington, Québec, as well when visiting grandparents, then mile not kilometres away, from my city world…and alas still away from it.
Jean-Jacques
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Profound memories – they are embedded forever in our souls.
Wonderful with the audio. The first two lines struck me. We have enjoyed the quiet time and peaceful quality it brought the first couple of weeks of being indoors then the return of civilization and the noise started up. It changes the ambiance.
Ambience. My iPhone autocorrected with a typo!
Hi Paulette, you liked it back then, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap | 2013/03/24 at 6:50 pm Edit Very nice. You sure do get those emotions across and grab hold of us readers. So I thought I’d nudge our memories once more, some seven years later, this time along with an audio recital, for which I am grateful for yours and like positive reception… Thank you my longtime treasured friend…! Jean-Jacques
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No problem Paulette, as said typo with your iPhone auto correcting ambiance to the English / US spelling, to use an e instead of an a as is used for the French spelling. My iPhone and Mac systems are used to my alternating from English to French or vice versa,in my writings. All is good!
Your poem expresses one of my most ardent desires. Again, I appreciated your recording it for us in your own voice with your own inflection.
Thanks much, Liz… I know it’s wishful thinking, but nothing ventured, nothing gained and sometimes just crying out, though knowing it’s but a deaf ear reach to the past, the thought that it once existed and I’d lived it, does help keep me sane!
Jean-Jacques
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I know just what you mean.