Silence

Silence is an endangered commodity. In the middle of the night, my Smartphone groans downstairs on the kitchen counter as an e-mail arrives, or an update becomes available. I hear it -- whispering into the darkness, "Droid," its electronic voice intoning if only to remind me that I am tethered to the electronic world even as I try to sleep. When I creep downstairs before dawn, I put on a ski parka and slippers to go out onto the porch to sniff a new day's air and to capture the silence of a new day. I try to listen to the roots of the trees flexing their toes, getting ready to send out new shoots, but already the train is idling at the station several blocks away -- waiting to transport people to their various daily obligations. It's low hum is comforting. Three squirrels scramble over the still naked branches of the elm tree, scolding each other, and flipping their tails in challenge. Chilled, I go inside, greeted by the coffee maker's grumbles, as it brings forth the morning coffee. The radio goes on upstairs, the shower bursts into action. The noise of a new day, and I rue the fact that I have missed the still small voice of God yet again.