Yellow Flames Flutter

The other night I pulled out my house copy of InsideOut. Not sure why. Maybe because it had somehow turned up at my bedside. And the solitude it had poured from seemed to be calling.

I realize that many of the poems are just glimpses, like this one...

Kale is purpling,
bluing and
purpling.


Or this one...

Little lemon tongues,
wagged off at last.


And this one...

Lightning flashes
and I write
of yellow leaves.


There are longer poems in the book too, but these are the kinds that solitude evoked—a simple focusing on one vision. An awe, if you will, and a willingness to capture that awe in very few words.

So you will not be surprised when I was pleased by Chapter 7 of Sanctuary of the Soul, which suggested poetry (reading or writing it), as a way to embrace silence and release ourselves from distraction.

Foster shares this poem from Robert Siegel...

Yellow flames flutter
about the feeder:
A Pentecost of finches.


Where does Siegel (or anyone?) come up with something like that? First the heart must see... and flutter. Near the feeder, in the yard, perhaps beside a lake or the sea.

Silence is Within

You have felt it perhaps. The silence after love, as you trace your Beloved. Or the silence of holding your child at some moment of discovery. You have felt the silence of a river and its silvery fish. Or maybe you have closed your eyes while on a subway and let the squeal of the turns and the clattering rocking become part of a silent symphony inside you.

Sometimes, in the face of irritating sounds, I play this game with my children: what is its beat, its quality, and can we meet it with a movement or song of our own that synchronizes, incorporates, joins?

Reading about Silence in chapter 3 of A Sunlit Absence, I did not understand (such mysterious language at times, such reasoning that assumes you are already in the circle of understanding).

Yet, by the end of the chapter, I felt I understood this: "Silence resounds in all sound." I don't know that I understood it in the way the author meant it, but it occurred to me that he was speaking of Silence as if it were a Presence itself.

And if Silence is a presence, it is something to be met and either shunned or welcomed. It is the moment after love, it is the holding, it is the river winding, it is the squeal and the clattering of metal-on-metal we can fold into a song. It is a quality we ourselves bring to our encounters, or it is the recognition of the Divine in everything—and here I am thinking of a verse the author quoted in a previous chapter, "In Him we live and move and have our being" or I am thinking of David's words, "like a weaned child is my soul within me."

_____

The author also seems to be saying that outer Silence can cultivate inner silence. In this chapter, he mentions the value of Retreat. That is why I love this place. Especially the silent nights under a sky full of more stars than you've probably seen in all your life.

What's Your Chair?

For a special project, I'm reading a book called A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation.

Hmmm.

I love the picture on the front. A gentle woman leaning in the shadows, arm on a book, quiet. I love the idea of silence and solitude (you know I do).

The book encourages us to choose a prayer chair on which to practice our silent moments ("quite googleable and not especially inexpensive"). I am wondering: couldn't a red sled do?

It also occurs to me that all of the examples so far, of successful contemplatives, were monks and nuns (and of course Jesus in the Wilderness). I wonder if these people were naturally introverted and drawn to the idea of silence. I have little doubt that they were childless.

I'm not judging the book yet (by its cover or anything else :), but I simply want to say that I truly wonder where the extrovert fits in a life of faith, where the woman with a few children hanging on her arms can find silence and solitude. I found some outdoors for a year, but it wasn't quite what the book I'm reading seems to have in mind.

Settle

This is what silence sounds like in my back yard…

Wind whooshing, woodpecker playing snare drum in the old maple, a yellow toy truck klunk-bashing tall cedar and jungle gym. Cordless drill making holes in someone’s garage. Shouts, knocks, squeals, sirens, a harmonica. Hemlocks whisper-whispering, "shh, shh, shh," the girl can hear us. Nuts cracking, water drip dripping. Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, an ice cream truck blaring electric-sick rendition of "You are My Sunshine." A plane roaring towards Chicago, or maybe Africa. An aluminum door banging, playing hard-to-get with the breeze ("you can have me, no you can’t"). The dog next door, first in a game of dog dominoes, "woof-woof-woof" down the street and back again and again and again.

I take what I can get.

Saying Grace in Silence

Alone today, and yes... a little lonely. I go to the library for a book I want to use for my thoughts on 'Silence' for God in the Yard. But the library is closed. I drop books in the bookdrop and see a little bodega on the corner. Columbian food.

Standing alone, waiting for my seafood soup, I remember my loneliness. I am scraping the sticky floor with my hiking shoes now, thinking of nothing in particular, waiting, living the silence I had meant to write about today. Somewhere in the middle of my chest I sense the difficulty of silence, in a physical way that feels like waves.

Home, I open the door to a quiet house and ladle myself some seafood soup. I am now feeling meditative about my dinner. Looking down I say 'thank you' for what someone else's hands have made. 'Thank you for this beautiful, beautiful soup that I am about to eat in silence.'

Void

How punishing the silence,
a presence of its own, that
battens down the corners
of my soul, binds my heart
unto itself, steers me into
emptiness, sharpens stillness
to the point where I wait for
the smallest of sounds...
a pin to drop or a needle
to rise through the cotton
of my shirt, prick the darkness
like a bell, tolling, rolling,
ringing news.