In silence

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?

.

Whose silence 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)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
.
“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult.

.

The wholeworld is secretly on fire

The stones burn,
even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

.

Thomas Merton