The Beauty of Silence by Honor Roberts

The world is busy. Calling. Tugging,

My mind steps back

To the stone arches, from where I followed into the place of silence. My feet suggested I was uneasy, awkward.

This place is a boat. A boat for us.

I don’t trust in the world. Neither do I trust myself. Where I am standing, this place is home for now.

St Therese, you are a knurl here. Your form is stone and your voice are so soft, it is almost silent.

I am not a pearl, or anything close to it. In fact, I feel lost, like a grain of sand trampled underfoot by the passer-by is from the mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds.

What two, stark voices are these? I must be clear of what I mean: The voices that are players, who swap their faces, gayly; habitually. And the voices of flowers. Unheard. Unknown.

Why cannot we hear them?

…They listen.

Others prattle. And do not listen in the beauty of silence.

Perhaps Shakespeare had it right, ‘Life’s but a walking shadow…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

But soft, all of this from which I speak, in the private confines of warm conversation, is not truth or fulfilment. Aloft me, the saints point to the holy crown. Spilling out celestial life, drinking what’s left.

There is no sound.

Now I want to listen, in the beauty of silence.

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