Silence has no Echo
Nor any rippling effect
–Lucille A La Roche to Nancy Ndeke in a scintillating discussiion
of Lucille’s post of Mya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” on Jan 11, 2022
— —
Silence Has No Echo
H. W. Bryce
Silence is a cave, sheltered from the breeze,
Hiding from the rumour, hiding from the tease,
Silence is the sound of fear, silence stifles every tear,
Silence hides from bullies where no one else can hear.
Silence has no echo
Silence sends no ripple out
Silence holds its feelings in
No one hears that secret thought
No one reacts to its needful call
No one floods the schoolhouse hall.
No one tries to stop the slap
No one bites his tongue or contradicts
The hurtful verbal smear
For silence sends no echo out
No ripples sent to reveal the doubt.
Silence launches no defence, silence wields no clout.
There is no echo to that silent prayer,
There is no ripple to spread the word of fear,
Silent in its cave, the echo huddles down,
Stifles its own voice and life never breathes fresh air.
No one witnesses the fall of stresssed-out tear,
Life wilts in airless cave, hope never does appear.
Courage must be born before courage can
Come to the aid of muted echo’s pain,
A ripple needs a pebble, to start toward the dawn
Before there can be any sort of gain.
Silence needs a voice, the truth of that is plain,
We need to learn to read the silent brail,
We need to lure the silence out from its silent cave,
We need to hear that silent echo send the ripples out
For healing love to hear that call scream it out.
Cave life is isolation, and isolation
Writes upon its own cave wall,
And nobody ever sees it
Till long after they are gone,
For silence sends no echo,
Silence sends no ripple out
To meet the breaking of the dawn
Where helping hands await
To erase that killing hate…
To free the silence from its chains.
For silence has no song
And silence makes no tune
Silence has no echo
Silence sends no ripples out
Silence must be broken
To let the prisoner out.
— — —
Image: https://pixabay.com/fr/illustrations/homme-destruction-double-exposition-1519665/
Nancy Ndeke said:
this is equally phenomenal, a befitting response to the amazing piece by Maya.
