National Poetry Month (a Forgotten) Disasterpiece

 
s i l e n c e

My first conscious memory of the silence occurred in the thirteenth year of my life. We the dirty dozen in the Luther League went out hiking one day. We journeyed far and east tot eh high and holy places in the mountains of the Three Sisters.

I ambled along far, far behind the throng. I paused to catch my breath and set my pack upon an old moss covered log. The sun streamed gracefully like how ballerinas bourree between the high up leaves drying the sweat across my wearied brow. I sat in awe basking in the age, beauty, and stillness of the forest.

An uneasy tingling crept up my spine. A quietness intruded into my consciousness. It overcame; engulfed my being in wave after wave of silence. It rolled in like the tide thundering like a lion; crashing like a mighty typhoon. It was all surrounding like taking a shower in a waterfall. I was one with it and IT was one with I.

After an eternity passed me by, the silence spoke a tender word. IT said, "It's OK....I AM is HERE....everything is all right." The unease slid into the experience of Shalom.

I realized in that awesome moment that silence is a very special place. It is here that we can meet and walk with our maker, in Eden, like Adam and Eve before they fell from grace. It is here that we lie naked like newborns before the Lord I AM.



This piece was written (as one disasterpiece among many for a final project) for REL 520 Spiritual Formation Spring Semester 1997 at GFU