"In the silence, let the words be born." Jean-Claude

Last summer, I stood at the monument at the mass grave at Wounded Knee Cemetery and listened to the wind sighing, like a voice calling out to be remembered, maybe even avenged. The wind that might be harnessed as electric energy, swirled around my head, telling me secrets, like the words to a song that this tiny guitar would never play.

Complete silence is unachievable and, for me, undesirable. The birds in the trees, the tumbling of dry leaves, the rumbles of trucks passing along the road, all audible annotations of life. The natural sounds of a body digesting its food or a baby crying in its sleep, all speak to this special kind of silence that creates images that yearn to be created and opportunities for communication on a basic and visceral level. It's a magical and necessary part of living.

If I could find perfect silence, it might frighten me as does the notion of blindness. Silence is the music of life, the music that develops its own lyrics in the imagination, and sometimes the collective imagination of this community. So often the words here on this site, accompanied by sound and color, invite me into the intimate places of the writers, the fact of their love, pain, regret, humor, grouchiness, and beauty. Too many have shared their emotions and art to call out to here, but the sharing of these things is the melody that creates this song, the paint that creates the portrait.