Barry Freeman | + Follow Poet |
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The Arrival of Sound

Once upon a long time,
The silence blanketed my world
Like snow covering an arctic forest.

The nooks and crannies of my days
Were filled with the wispy webs of quietude 
Worked by whispering limbs

Mine was a vast tundra
Of silence
Across which great unheard herds 
Of thoughts could roam
Freely, gambol and graze
Encountering nothing to disturb them

Rivulets of words
Gathered and trickled
Over the schisty shingles
Of my mind

Eons passed

But one cold, silent, snow flaked January morning
A pioneer strode manfully, meaningfully
Into my wilderness without warning.

Falling in love with all that he saw
He began to sharpen his axe.

Now the hordes of herds have all but disappeared
And the rivulets have been dammed and channelled
Into a thousand subterranean pipes
And there is TV and MTV and DVD and MP3
And my world
Is rich with sound.

Copyright © Barry Freeman | Year Posted 2021

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Courtney Moita Date: 6/25/2021 2:46:00 AM I love the sounds of the words in this poem, was it inspired by a particular event? Login to Reply Barry Freeman Date: 6/27/2021 3:11:00 PM Yes, partially inspired by my having spent time in the Tasmanian Wilderness during the campaign (successful) to stop the damming of the Franklin River. Unlike the tropical rainforsets the arctic rainforests are incredibly quiet and I spent a month there getting used to the extreme silence and being with my thoughts. Later when I walked into the workers camp to chain myself to a piece of machinery to get arrested, I was struck by how loud even a little bit of that world was. Barry Freeman Date: 6/27/2021 3:11:00 PM Later still when I returned to the urban jungle, I almost suffered agorophobia and had to struggle to leave the house or ride on a bus. The traffic was terrifying.