Silent Synapses

The landscape of the brain is silent

at first.

The forest of eager young neurons nestles together,
and although these trees seethe with flash-pan sparking,
not a whisper passes from post to post,
not a word is communicated among the foliage.

The sprouts of youth spring up
in so many tangled formations,
nearly touching here and
everywhere,
but careful never to make contact.

Silence reigns.
The forest is too bolstered with youth,
wending in ill-advised, undermined conformations,
yielding unwieldy bulks of misdirected branches:
the mettle of inexperience.

Something is missing
from the members of the cellular deep:
a puzzle piece, a component,
a receptor.

But maturity, in all things, holds its time and place.
Before long — on one fine morning,
in the fresh dew —
a spark shatters the porcelain of quietude;
there is a sound heard among the stalwart silence
as the neuronal forest speaks its first words.

Silence — as all things must — dies.
Soon the forest is saturated with the sounding-off
of so many masterfully synchronized sirens,
and life may blossom.