Wine - alcohol in general - has never been a taste I've acquired, and so I cannot compare the silence to wine, nor murmur of how I drink it like wine and sigh with satisfaction. Having basked in this for a month now, I still notice that wondrous, lustrous silence. I've never prayed, and so do not know how to give thanks for the soft texture of the night and the great dimensions it governs, for there is a depth that can only be found in a silence that spans topography, in which a car door, the call of a sleep-startled bird can be heard across the valley. This emptiness and stillness is a treasure the likes of which I may never take for granted, and shall forever be of a value for which there is no number large enough to encapsulate. The grunt and tick of hard drives, the wheeze of the fridge, the sound of gutters shifting in the wind, my hair rustling against the pillow, the sound of my breath in my throat, once again I can hear the pulse of blood, my blood, my pulse.