Classic Poem

Does the sound or the silence make
music? When no ripples pass
over watery trees; like painted glass
lying beneath a quiet lake;
would you think the real forest lay
only in the reflected
trees, which are protected
by non-existence from the air of day?
Our blood gives voice to earth and shell,
they speak but in refracted sounds.
The silence of the dead resounds,
but what they say we cannot tell.
Only echoes of what they taught
are heard by living ears.
The tongue tells what it hears
and drowns the silence which the dead besought.
The questioning, circumambient light
the answering, luminiferous doubt
listen, and whisper it about
until the mocking stars turn bright.
Tardy flowers have bloomed long
but they have long been dead.
Now on the ice, like lead
hailstones drop loud, with a rattlesnake's song.