almost the real thing

It's a kind of perfection, like death.
If you want it, maybe you want death.

There is nothing as silent as a classroom
just after a question has been asked.

Snow is a kind of silence
when you can't hear it falling

behind a plate glass window.
The fire snapping in a cool room

is not silence, but nostalgia
for it, almost the real thing.

A friend suddenly went deaf
in one ear. He was given silence

as penance for years of not listening,
according to his wife. It makes her sad

how half his life stalks him,
how he turns away to hear.

[Ellen Kaufman, 'Looking for Silence' from House Music]