Darkness…

So, in an attempt to do a little more with my blog beyond just advertising the fabulous designers I work for and showing off my scrapbook pages and occasional crafts, I’d like to trying just writing about random things. No specific topics right now, I’m still working on that. But in the meantime, I’m picking up some daily prompts that just encourage me to write. Maybe other ideas will come to me and maybe they won’t. We’ll see. For now I’m just taking it one day at a time, like everything else.

The prompts are coming from The Daily Post and today’s prompt is Darkness. The first thing that came to my mind is the song Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Wow, does this song speak to me right now. So many walking around in darkness, not really even seeing or hearing each other…listening, connecting. Garfunkel once said the song is about “the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other”. The “neon gods”, the tv, the media, celebrities, and material things…so many listening without really hearing, talking without really speaking. This song is 50+ years old. Can things change? Will they?

I know lots of people are hating on Disturbed’s cover of the song, but I’m really digging it.