Transcriptions

A cacophony of voices rises,

along with the noises of Life;
the shrieks, crashes and throbs
of man, machine and beast—
a polyphony of distractions.

There is no substitute for listening,
even among the best thought partners,
and doubly true that is for the transcriptionist
who must gather a single thread,
from among the knotty ribbons of fire,
that will allow Theseus to quit the labyrinth.

Loudness and speed or lowness and length
are symptomatic of a need for supremacy.

On the one hand, those windows of silence,
that would bring necessary context,
are lost in the wall of loud, louder, loudest.

On the other hand, many words run too fluidly
to make out with any certainty whatsoever.

And so the peace and understanding
of all the world hangs on the ears
of the lone and earnest stenographer,
to accurately record life, libation, living and love
as a single strand of thought, a manifesto.

The wings and winds of distraction
whip at curtains of indecision and disillusion,
not to say disinclination,
to forge something real from delusions,
something that will last beyond a convenient now,
something that will cancel the end game.

But, there comes an end to all our talking—
we must breathe to speak, and so we stop;
all is futile, futile, utterly futile,
even while the earth glows with Life—
we are mostly deaf to Life’s music;
it plays beyond our petty cravings,
beyond our ignoble dominions and wars.

Silence comes only because we must stop,
and welling, as from within an eruption of silence,
a truer answer finds voice and flight,
one that only the transcriber can hear.

The answer is heard by one,
but goes unrecorded;
truth often lies outside
the contractual agreement.

© 2011 by Elisabeth Eliassen