I have heard it said that a composer paints 
on silence. 
This is, of course, complete 
nonsense. 
Music is performed on Time itself,
silence a shade in the pallet!
This also means nothing. 
The canvas must be 
air and its constituent gases. 
Compression, rarefaction. 
But where’s the romance in that? Besides, 
only by nothing can anything be:

With music we share an origin 
of silence, 
which gives a note its life
and voice; 
like space a word its… weight
The emptiness between these lines
and curves are as embrasure
 to merlon; 
trough to crest, 
the void
 a footprint, an absence;
a passage through-

We are surrounded 
by negative space. In fact, 
everything means nothing.
But the reverse is also true.

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