In the concert hall, each motionless listener is part of the performance.The concentration of the player charges the electric tension in the auditorium and returns to the playLIer magnified.I like the fact that "LISTEN" is an anagram of "SILENT".Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops.It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.It's wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.
God is absorbed in work, and hears
the spacious hum of bees, not the din,
and hears far-off
our screams. Perhaps
God listens for prayers in that wild solitude.
And hurries on with weaving:
till it's done, the garment woven,
our voices, clear under the familiar
blocked-out clamor of the task,
can't stop their
terrible beseeching. God
imagines it sifting through, at last, to music
in the astounded quietness, the loom idle,
the weaver at rest.