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In the dream of reference, a word is epithalamion to what it signifies.
But what word signifies silence? And what does the word for silence signify?
And who’s dreaming this dream anyway? Are we hearing God, or the serpent?

The rest is silence, says Hamlet. But then, in the 1623 Folio, he moans O, o, o, o.
Cage’s 4:33 is unbearably noisy. Imagine how Beethoven’s earphone felt,
Straining to hurl the world’s glorious sounds at a god who couldn’t hear.

Press the piano key gently and there’s a moment before the hammer drops
That captures the quiet Vermeer sought in every half-lit interior,
As if the absence of sound were indeed the way to evoke the absence of sound.