Audire Silentium
One from my poetry collection “Idle Thoughts” (2005).
Also published in the anthology “Voices from the Web (2004)
Hush.
Listen to the silence,
It speaks volumes.
It whispers truths
That a thousand words,
Devoid of meaning,
Yet full of ambiguity,
Cannot express.
© Luigi Pagano
© ionicus 2023
Views: 1128
very nice and well written, that’s silence indeed.
Welcome back Nic and thanks for the feedback.
Love, Luigi x
Luigi, You exhort me to listen to silence but I can’t for the tinnitus in my ears. Just a wee question at Christmas, why have you got the infinitive ‘audire’ and not ‘audite’?
Gerald.
You are quite right that I exhort you to listen but the title, which you well know means “Listening to the silence”, defines the poem.
I’m puzzled. Is ‘audire silentium’ a quotation from somewhere? I thought ‘audire’ meant ‘to hear/listen’,
not ‘listening.’
Gerald, it is more than seventy years since I was in the classroom dealing with declensions and conjugations but still remember that ‘audire’ as an infinitive means ‘to listen’ while ‘audire’ as a gerund means ‘listening’.
To my knowledge ‘audire silentium’ is not a quotation.
The top of the Christmas morning to you Luigi! Thanks for the clarification. I can’t quite match your seventy years plus since you studied Latin. I’ve only done sixty-seven. Latin was my favourite subject at school and I took it at A’ level and Scholarship Level, even grappling with Tacitus. I think the passage of time has damaged my memory.
Cheers, Gerald.
Top of the morning indeed, Gerald. The weather at the moment is benign in my part of the world and everything seems to augur well, although we may be deluding ourselves.
From what you say it looks as if I am your senior in age. As for memory I find that I can recall past events easier than more recent ones.
Best wishes and compliments of the season.
Luigi