Especially Silence

Gerald Brennan—composer, lyricist, pianist, singer

The monastic tradition has abided for millennia. There are monks and nuns who enter therein and some of them must take a vow of silence. That doesn’t mean “no talking,” it means no unnecessary speaking. Hard to imagine, no?
I have never heard of a song written about these remarkable people so I was inspired to give it a whirl, to be their “voice” for a moment.
These monks and nuns can’t own anything and take all their orders from their superiors. In return, they never have to worry about food, shelter, clothing, or even how to go about their day.
This fellow (like all of them?) is having second thoughts. He knows that, when he walks through that door, “she” will be gone forever.

A century’s footsteps
echo down these marble halls.
How will my future
fit within these granite walls?
There are so many new things
that I will have to learn.
Especially silence.

No more possessions.
There is nothing I can keep.
I won’t have to wonder
what to eat or when to sleep.
Some of these things are easy,
a few of them are not.
Especially silence.

O! that sad voice
calling me back,
a face I still dream of…

To break from desire.
To put away my childish things.
To banish the thirst and hunger.
To end my aimless wanderings.
How can I quench the fires,
if the thought of you still burns,
and howls through the silence?

Safe from the things that haunt me,
the tyranny of words,
the fear and the violence.
But many things I still have yet to learn.
Especially silence…