{"id":3960,"date":"2022-11-29T17:14:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/?page_id=3960"},"modified":"2022-11-30T16:39:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:39:57","slug":"in-praise-of-shallow-silence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/december-2022\/in-praise-of-shallow-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Shallow Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Yeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo by SL Granum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2026 right ear cocked,
\nsame-side eye not quite looking
\nas a tentative bird approaches another<\/p>\n

he pecks for the quick
\nof silence.<\/p>\n

Garden gravel, limpid puddle
\nto weekly meeting, where<\/p>\n

Friends sit, four square
\n\u2013 a tight, unbroken ocean \u2013
\nmaking love, from nothing.<\/p>\n

They look, he sees
\nnot at each other\u2019s eyes, but with.<\/p>\n

Around such a well
\neveryone equal
\nthrough lens and iris to pupil.<\/p>\n

Old buckets on worn-out velvet ropes
\ngo much too deep.<\/p>\n

Lids close.
\nWithin such waters, ear lobes
\nlook like fins.<\/p>\n

Him, him, It, us, us
\nshe\u2026
\nbut when is we?<\/p>\n

Leonard? Anna?
\nA guide-dog
\nslurps his water.<\/p>\n

Two clicks.
\nThe thermostat at last, or
\nwas it the electric clock?<\/p>\n

Ecstatic rummaging,
\ndeep inside a leather bag
\nsomeone touching keys, then coins?<\/p>\n

India-paper pages
\nleafed through
\ncrackle like straw, catching fire.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
Previous Article<\/a><\/td>\nNext Article<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Back to December 2022 Newsletter Main Page<\/a><\/p>\n

Forty-Three<\/em> Newsletter \u2022 Number 524 \u2022 December 2022
\n<\/strong>Oxford Friends Meeting
\n43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW<\/p>\n

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2022, Oxford Quakers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Yeo \u2026 right ear cocked, same-side eye not quite looking as a tentative bird approaches another he pecks for the quick of silence. Garden gravel, limpid puddle to weekly meeting, where Friends sit, four square \u2013 a tight, unbroken ocean \u2013 making love, from nothing. They look, he sees not at each other\u2019s eyes, … Continue reading In Praise of Shallow Silence<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"parent":3908,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3960","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3960"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4012,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3960\/revisions\/4012"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}