I know that I for one was perhaps one of the many in 1966 “hearing without listening” to this very moving song performed by Simon and Garfunkel as a teenager during the Vietnam War.
As a mature adult, I hear it with new meaning and a sadness, a very deep sadness thinking of all the little boys playing soldiers in their youth and finding out all too soon that war was nothing as they might have imagined it to be, and so the vision of war still remains within the sound of silence.
These pictures depict boys playing together in their youth, fighting together as young men and the last showing a lone soldier.
The photos are very revealing to those of us who may have heard without listening…
~ Jenny La Sala, Creator, Administrator and Writer for Comes A Soldier’s Whisper Veteran tribute page.
Special thanks to the singing group Disturbed for this powerful rendition www.youtube.com/watch?v=4an6DwWeo0w
“The Sound Of Silence”
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 street lamp,
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
And no one dared
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 the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
POST LINK: medium.com/…/hearing-without-listening-c9c69a887de3…
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