Silence and Confusion

Silence was an interesting poem. It actually makes a lot of sense. The entire idea of the poem is that silence doesn’t really exist. Silence can never exist, unless everything in the world is dead. Everything has a sound. The insects walking around, the grass blowing, the wind moving around the room; it all has some form of sound. I like the poem because of the examples it uses to demonstrate the nonexistence of silence. I think the line which demonstrates it well was "Perfect silence is not, because all parts of like are vigilant and audible. A blade of grass emits an /enormous and menacing sound like a 420 which rises towards the heavens." I really feel as if that epitomizes the idea of the poem. However, I found it interesting the turn the poem takes in the last stanza. Finally, after describing that Silence does not exist, the first line is 'A Silence Falls.' Honestly, the last stanza confuses me a great deal. I'm wondering what the scene here was. I get the picture of a man wandering through a field looking for survivors, or surviving soldiers after some massive attack. Here is where I find myself confused, because, to me, its as if the two ideas are not cohesive. Up to the last stanza, the language is interesting, the poetic and the strength of the words. It pulls out odd references, such as grass and soil, and makes them powerful, but not in a mystical or unrealistic way. I think it does a great job with emphasizing the role of everything in life without personifying it, which can come across as cliché. It's a very in-depth analysis. I approve J