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

Dame Tu Corazon: Cuatro Poemas

The condor wheels…

The condor wheels,

Currents, warm, rise,

Noon pulsates,

Shadows entice,

Stillness, a wing,

Silence beats the air,

Dusk is solace,

Dawn, fair,

Day transforms,

The moon allures,

Clocks chime—brightly!

—love endures,

Time, a dragonfly,

Solitude, a dove,

I am solitude,

You are love.

Your love is a meal we share…

Your love is a meal we share, stopping as events blink by.

We are waiting trains, rushing travelers hop in and out.

Time slows, a luminous animal patrolling the depths.

We visit the bubble of an artisan polishing a vase.

Sitting down, transfixed by a moment of white jade,

We recall lolling on the sand as the outstretched arm

Of a comet flashed our future across a sable sky.

You sip my glass of wine, swirling it toward your lips.

I scoop toward you heaps of fresh rice steaming fragrant clouds.

We gaze at many dishes, teeming fields quilting a fertile valley.

Reflecting on your quiet life…

Reflecting on your quiet life, I gaze at you in repose, your eyes pearls shaken loose from treetops, silvered.

                                                                    

Rain pelts our roof with pebbles as you drift into sleep, river brushwood rubbing shoulders with land.

Rising and falling, a cloud bumping over a mountain, your white arms. Turning, you exhale deeply. Mist gently pushes back your hair.

Wild brushstrokes of pillows and linens tumble as children, their laughter, bolts of silk, shimmying.

Gazebo freshly planted, you wind your legs and arms about a trellis.

Let us be orchids who widen our filigreed faces, leaves tapering to wax points proffering greetings.

Nodding plants in a circle, we will dine with April as our guest, grasping his warm hands from the vows of dawn until the crown of dusk.

Our lives together...

Our lives together are braided vines.

We scale a wall watered by the sun,

Our roots meet in soil fed by rain.

Your arms in sinuous embrace

Lift us to climb ever higher.

Your eyes are nodding leaves,

Good fortune is the breeze.

Budding forth, your kindnesses

Blossom, imperishable.

Let us bask in the day entering

As liminal shadows open shutters.

When the gardener comes by,

I will ask him to trim our love

So that it intertwines forever.

Mango Vendor (1951) by Fernando Amorsolo

Forbearance is silence…

Forbearance is silence…

Forbearance is silence,

Virtue of the meek.

Silence is complicity,

Oppression of the weak.

Mahatma Gandhi (2010) by Purushotham Adve, Malpe Beach, India

O Beata Solitudo: Duo Poematis

OUR LADY OF THE PHILIPPINES

Trappist Abbey

When the moon climbs the cloudless sky and stillness pours into valleys pooling waters of silence, I rise from sleep to dress, shuffling off loose dreams like a sack.

Stepping outside, I inhale brisk air like snuff—suddenly, I am wakeful, a clock about to spring. I toss out bags of sand to rise more quickly.

In the early chill the mountains stand as guardian shadows and night gleams like dragonfly wings.

I am eager for the work of God beckoning at the end of a solitary path just beyond a row of trees bristling at wind snapping like a flag.

Bits of gravel bite at my soles as turning the corner, I lift up my heart at the sight of light spilling gently from the entrance to the church.

Stepping inside, I am greeted by the bright echo of kneelers knocking the stone floor, and softly rustling pages of stapled paper hymnals.

Gradually, ethereal plainchant rises like a river, gathers itself, solidly transforming into one long sonorous brilliant golden bell.

Brown Madonna (1938) by Galo Ocampo

HERMITS OF BETHLEHEM

Chester, New Jersey

Beyond the threshold is silence.

Stillness suffuses like light.

The world outside is spinning.

Summer flames at its height.

Solitude is a boon companion.

Self-knowledge climbs like a sloth.

The bed is spare, a thin beard.

The rocking chair is a moth.

Dig in a cave in darkness.

Toss out handfuls of soil.

Bake bread in your heart, an oven.

Bring steaming thirst to a boil.

Listen for the least word of power.

Pierce yourself with a sword.

Afternoon deepens day shadows.

The sun is a violent lord.

Dusk emanates blood-red rays.

All trials in an instant will pass.

Gaze upon woods colored jade.

Dream dreams of emerald grass.

Bethlehem—when the trees say nothing

Forbearance is silence…

Forbearance is silence…

Forbearance is silence,

Virtue of the meek.

Silence is complicity,

Oppression of the weak.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Washington, D.C.