Silence

The still, quiet emptiness of an urban cemetery always grips me. Today, I passed by St. James on my bicycle, and, being native to a still and quiet patch of farmland, I was drawn to the solace the graveyard offered. So I locked up my bike and sat for a while with the dead, soaking in the wild contrasts of the scene the tombstones look upon hour after hour.

I sat silently and motionless and penned this proverb:

Our eyes look ever forward
Making plans for days to come
Our calendars, PDA’s, and cell phones
Are the instruments with which we severe
Our ties to those in the grave

Having done so, we are left without them
In our ignorance
And the city’s constant motion
Beats into us the lie that movement
And sound will never cease
And that someday our mouths
Will go on jabbering
Beneath the soil

O dead ones who can no longer speak
Teach us to listen to your silence

O dead ones who can no longer move
Teach us to be still

For we are your children
And soon we will join you