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Posts Tagged ‘silence’

Untranslatable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 8, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
The language of grief is silence. 
—Maggie Anderson, “What Grief Does”
 
No one can translate the language of grief.
No verbs properly express how it collapses
past, present and future into a single tense
in which all becomes unswimmable wave
and at the same time immovable stone. 
No way to explain how in my grief lexicon 
the word cello can only be spoken in sob. 
How the single word shadow is somehow 
an entire prayer, equal parts praise and lament. 
How there are as many translations for loss 
as there are losses, and each phrase mutates 
into infinite local dialects spoken fluently only 
by the individual who grieves. So perhaps 
it is true, the language of grief is silence—
a mother tongue we are all gifted from birth. 
Though sometimes the language of grief is wail. 
Sometimes sniffle. Howl. Murmur. Hum. 
So different, this language, for everyone. 
And every moment, a new nuance unfolds. 
It’s a wonder we understand each other at all. 
Except we do. We share it, this language 
we can’t possibly translate and yet we know its
expressions by heart. For this, we offer each other 
our ears, knowing full well we can never 
wholly understand, knowing full well it matters 
that we listen anyway to gurgle, moan, silence, cry.

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Reunion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 5, 2026| 3 Comments »


 
 
After the kazoos and champagne and hula hoops,
after the blueberry pie, after the napkins folded
and unfolded and crumpled, after the impromptu
parade on the drive, after the house full of laughter
and music, after the glow sticks, the glittering headbands, 
the mountain of dishes washed and dried and put away 
there was that moment when we sat on the couch,
just the two of us. You held my hand. We said nothing.
Like two swallows, done swooping for the day
who finally enter the nest they have built together, 
snuggling at last on the rim. 

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Sometimes When You Don’t Know What to Say

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 1, 2026| 8 Comments »


 
 
It’s because to try to describe this feeling is 
to render it instantly dull, flat. 
It’s like when you see a rock on the bottom
of the river—all shimmering and bright—
but the moment you bring it to the air
to share it, what seemed precious 
becomes cloudy, mundane, a dumb lump,
the stuff of filler in a suburban parking lot.
 
And so you learn to be quiet, to let your syllables 
float away like dry leaves. What is heaviest 
stays. Does not wash away. Is polished by friction, years. 
Sometimes you meet others in the river. What shines 
shines. Together you stare, stunned by the damn beauty. 
Maybe you hold hands. Watch the light as it plays.

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Shh

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 23, 2026| 1 Comment »


 
 
So soft and sweet the scent 
of this lilac’s first bloom
I stop trying to praise it 
and instead breathe it in—
 
the eager vibration 
of hummingbird wings
says everything.

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Listening to Glen Velez in a Garden in Ohio

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 7, 2026| 5 Comments »

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One Deep Listening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
inside the prickly silence
a generous silence—
in the desert, a hidden spring

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Sitting in a Quiet Room

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 8, 2025| 4 Comments »


                  with thanks to Karly Pitman
 
There is this stark moment
when I see I am not my worry.
When I do not chastise
myself for worrying, nor
do I demonize the worry.
I do not imagine the worry
as a snake or a tick or a nail.
I welcome it into my lap,
uncomfortable teacher,
and pause here
on the hard chair of curiosity.
Softness arrives with conscious breath.
In and around me blooms
spaciousness.
Silence is the tenderest lullaby.
It holds both the worry and me.
It has no tongue, yet the lyric is clear,
There is nothing here you cannot meet.

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Sitting on the Porch at Night

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 30, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
A blue cup. Lemon tea.
Scent of rain.
A drove of stars.
A silence so vast
the mind forgets
to reach for meaning
or purpose and
for a moment
each thing is
exactly what it is.
A cup. Lemon tea.
Scent of rain.
A woman who
does not remember
if she’s a woman
or a star.

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After a Morning of Crossing Things from a List

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2025| 12 Comments »

Then comes the moment
when not one thing is more important
than walking to the river
and finding a wide rock in the middle
of the flow where I can sit
and speak to you.
There’s not much to say
these days besides I love you,
I miss you. So I say the paltry words,
six inadequate syllables.
As always they are sorry translations
for the infinite songs of my heart.
So I sit on the rock and listen;
silence the language you speak now.
I’ve been learning its tender
conjugations—you were. You are.
You have been. You will have been.
Is it true they all sound the same?
I practice silence long enough
the river moves through me
touching all I cannot say.
I don’t know how I know
when it is time to rise.
The silence holds me.
I teach the silence your name.

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On Peace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 28, 2025| 5 Comments »


 
All of humanity’s difficulties stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
                  —Blaise Pascal, Pensées (first published in 1670)
 
 
Let me learn this quiet art
of being still in a room alone.
There is so much I cannot do
to help the world,
but this—
let me learn to metabolize
silence as the alga in lichen
metabolizes light. Let me learn
to root and grow
in the sparest of places
as the fungus of lichen attaches
to the barest of rocks.
Let me learn to let the vastly different
kingdoms of myself serve each other
instead of warring,
the way alga and fungus
live together in lichen,
a symbiosis so stable we see
the two as one. This is how
I come to believe it is possible.
I have been sitting with lichen.
The quietest of sermons.
I cannot stop listening.

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