Thursday, December 9, 2010

turning inward

Be Still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try to speak your name.
Listen to the living walls.

Who are you?, Who are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you(as these stones are quiet.)
Do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be.

Rather be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one you do not know.
O be still, while you are still alive, and all things live around you speaking ( I do not hear)
in your own being, speaking by the unknown that is in you and in themselves.

-Thomas Merton

3 comments:

bucko said...

Thanks for this poem! To listen is a very difficult activity. Truly hard work. Seems like writing is listening, as much as it is speaking. Do you think these two activities happen at once, or the writer does one then another, in turn?

Alana said...

I think it can be a mix of both. Sometimes the writer doesn't listen to what is meant to be said and just spits it out. But if you can quietly process whatever it is your mind and soul want to say it comes out better.

bucko said...

It's the quietly process that is the tough part. Yarrgh.