by Shikhandin
What theme are you addressing in your piece? Why is this important to you?
Shikhandin: Contemplation in silence. Or stillness, if you please. Both states, of silence and stillness, promote contemplation. This is something I try to practise every day. I believe it makes you more mindful of even mundane activities like dusting; it makes you conscious of the moment at hand. And when you sit in silent contemplation, let all natural and ambient sounds roll over you, it has a calming effect, and makes you aware of the world in a way that physically engaging with it cannot. People are shrill and opinionated these days. I am not sure what good that really does. My poems, ‘Sudden Lull and Unspoken try to address this, and visualise a situation where contemplation occurs in the midst of quietude, hopefully without moralising.
Sudden Lull
A stream of silence
comes
meandering by,
and finding little obstruction
gathers
into a pool.
An occasional bird call
plops
in like a pebble,
spreading small ripples of unrest.
But before long
it is swallowed
whole.
Now that unblinking pool
of silence
is lying quiet at my feet
and quiet sits this evening
underneath the eaves,
I can almost feel heaven
in this moment
where eternity
breathes.
***
Unspoken
Imagine motherhood without the infant.
Imagine the moon as a foetus of earth. Imagine
un-rocked sleep,
soft murmurings of un-speech.
Visualize
breath between unvoiced sound
wafting softly down to the ground
in a gentle arc of air. That air
sliced
in the movement of limb –
a sickle of warm flesh
Feel the word
uncorked from the O of mouth
between poised lips. Stretching into
the yawn of space making ideas tunnel
through the void, feeding
on morsels of time.
Imagine
that word
hung out to dry
in the sun
