Some Thoughts On Stillness Poem by Doris Voina

As days went by, as years went by,
- decades even, I became enamored
with the spaces between words, with
the silences between our long embraces,
with exhaling into the Stillness of my belly,
only to wait patiently and curiously
For air and for life to begin once again.

When you come to me in the evenings,
Shedding your dark shadows one by one,
Quiet has a heavy, weighing pointedness.
On rare Sundays, when your spirit is free
We're playing our music loudly, manically;
Silence has a furtive, almost imperceptible
Presence.

I long for once again sitting quietly in rooms
Until I disappear suddenly or perhaps until
I'm very far away. Then, and only then
Can I finally hear the murmurs of the house,
The creaks and strange sounds, the wind
Safely finding shelter in all the odd places.
For after all, the greatest mystery of them all
Is life springing suddenly, unexpectedly, out of
Nothingness.

What a pity, we still think stillness is death.
We should all learn better from the ocean waves:
They ebb piercingly and then flow in gracious
Silence. And every time we fall in a dreamless sleep,
We sink deeply into the beautiful silence that permeates
Everything.

I've found a truth and I'm hanging on to it, clinging,
Arduously following it to its logical conclusion…
To hear things clearly, to really listen to the sounds
Of the Universe, we must - for a brief moment at least -
Simply dare to be Still.