SILENT HOUSE

"Country Cottage", watercolor, by Don Gray

Since I do most of my writing in the very first hours of the morning, when our small house beside the Mystic River is as silent as the stars that are still shining, I sometimes feel the fullness of silence in my mind, as well. At that time of the morning, the furnace might be making soft sounds down in the cellar, but the rest of the house is hushed, just as my mind is, just as it needs to be in order to start to show me some new thoughts. As I sit at my desk in front of the laptop, I listen to the hum of the furnace, and also to the  purr and murmur of my mind as it silently makes thoughts materialize in their mysterious ways. The river flows from secluded beginnings in bogs and concealed swamps, and who knows in what wilderness my thoughts have their inscrutable start? In the boundless country of my mind, there are borderless areas beyond counting where thoughts can come together to share and start up new thoughts and families of thoughts. I sit in the peaceful house and patiently wait, and soon the thoughts start showing up, straggling or fancy-dancy, like visitors from far away.