The Silence After the Sound

An old silent pond. A frog jumps into the pond, splash. Silence again.

The poem gives us silence twice. The first silence is assumed, a background we stopped hearing. The second is earned, because something broke it and we were present for the breaking. Attention works this way. A kettle clicks off, a door closes down the hall, and for one breath the room is louder in its quiet than before. The interruption is not the enemy of stillness. It is how stillness becomes audible.