If you watch the heron as it stalks
amongst the tall green reeds, then pauses,
and in its pausing disappears, then you understand
something of the power of stillness.
And if you, yourself, are still long enough
to see the head of the snapping turtle
rise between the lily pads,
then you glean something of the rewards
that come with sitting still.
But if you sit expecting such rewards,
then perhaps sit longer and watch the cattails
as they waver and still, sway and still and still,
and feel how the urge in you to say something rises
and softens and softens until there is nothing to say,
until that kind of stillness becomes
the greatest reward, until you feel
stillness hold you the way the lake
holds the lily pad, the way
the silence holds a song.