The Ladder of Silence

THE LADDER OF SILENCE

The ladder of silence consists of seven steps.

The first step is habitual prayer.

The second step is to speak only when necessary, whatever necessary, to the extent possible.

The third step is to reduce the noise of our external world under our control to a practicable minimum.

The fourth step is to grow in constant conversation with God and thereby to deepen our union with him.

The fifth step is to speak out against injustice and oppression.

The sixth step is to keep silent in the face of insult or injury.

The seventh step is to imitate Christ in his suffering and death on the cross.

Originally published in The Montréal Review (March 2017)

Dead Christ (c. 1480) by Andrea Mantegna

Irony

IRONY

Darkness is luminous:

It bends as light.

Day is over:

It rises with night.

A clock is a statue;

A desert, a lake.

Sorrow is joy;

A festival, a wake.

The moon is the sun;

The universe, a box;

Truth, appearance;

Reality, paradox.

Christ Destroys His Cross (1932-34) by Jose Clemente Orozco 

I eat dry bread…

I eat dry bread…

I eat dry bread in the desert:

It tastes like a cake of dust.

I breathe in and out powdery clouds:

Nostrils singe, snorting fire.

I swallow my own saliva:

Thick paste coats my inside throat.

How will I sustain my journey in this land

When my mouth is filled with sand?

I falter inside a steel kettle, sparks popping about.

Black footprints flame at the edges.

I am dried up, a gourd rattling seeds.

Heat waves deceive like the devil.

Thirsty, I lick at a mirage with my eyes.

Twisting, I glimpse the taskmaster sun.

Hands astride hips, he glares mercilessly,

Glowering white noon death rays.

The sky is livid, a clown murderer, crimson lips, grinning.

He spills sacksful of hot ash from above.

Hordes, buried alive, scratch at the insides of a wooden coffin.

Spiritless as the burning air gone lifeless,

I am dark as a moonless, starless sky,

Staggering in an expanse unbounded beyond extreme sight,

Devoid of any atom of hope,

Despair, a universe expanding endlessly.

Originally published in Cecile’s Writers (August 28, 2016)

Mano del Desierto (1992) by Mario Irarrázaal, Atacama Desert, Chile