I am silent without the sun?

A silly post. But a riddle of sorts.

As I was standing next to our garden sundial, taking in the sun, it came to me to post this little riddle. (Must be all that UV-C.) Here’s the sundial:

As you can see, there is an inscription at the bottom, “I AM SILENT WITHOUT THE SUN”. The question is, why are those words there—what do they mean?

I asked the AI of a certain web browser that will remain unnamed (no, it’s not that browser—whichever you were probably thinking of) this question: What does the inscription "I'm silent without the sun" on a sundial mean? I did this because I like to laugh at the answers that my regular browser’s AIs offer (without asking me if I want their opinion). To my utter astonishment, however, after saying that it didn’t find many hits, it answered the question correctly!

I’m a little chagrined. It took me years to understand what those words are doing there, presented they they are. Possibly more than a decade. The answer is rather obvious, once you see it.

I bought the sundial and pedestal years ago, to go in that round patio at the back of the garden. The garden has gone through many changes, but the sundial stands there looking like it always has, a small connection to earlier days that felt better than what these feel like today. Here’s a peek, taken from the orchard (being redone) and highlighting some of the edibles, berry bushes left and right, raised vegetable beds to the far right. And lots of weeds. Disclaimer: this is not my garden! It belongs to my housemate, who owns the property.

OK, time for lunch while the sun’s still up.