Silence is where poetry is born. I have long wondered if my preference for books and poetry is based in part on the fact that I was born with hearing defect and something called Central Auditory Processing Disorder. A number of surgeries and hospital stays when I was young, fixed the hearing defect. The Central Auditory Processing Disorder however has remained.

CAPD means that silence is always my preferred state. It is where I am most comfortable. Trying to listen to people speaking is exhausting. Watching movies and trying to listen to music can be just as exhausting. Poetry and books live in my head and so are easier.

After is Hirshfield’s sixth(?) book, published in 2006. This is the first poem in the book and the one that originally caught my ear and eye.

Enjoy!

After Long Silence
 by Jane Hirshfield

Politeness fades,

A small anchovy gleam
leaving the upturned pot in the dish rack
after the moon has wandered out of the window.

One of the late freedoms, there in the dark.
The leftover soup put away as well.

Distinctions matter. Whether a goat’s
quiet face should be called noble
or indifferent. The difference between a right rigor and pride.

The untranslatable thought must be the most precise.

Yet words are not the end of thought, they are where it begins.

Listening with a pencil and my ear, these are the lines I marked: