silence II

Silence is not a lack of words. 

Silence is not a lack of music. 

Silence is not a lack of curses. 

Silence is not a lack of screams. 

Silence is not a lack of colors 

or voices or bodies or whistling wind. 

Silence is not a lack of anything. 

Silence is resting, nestling 

in every leaf of every tree, 

in every root and branch. 

Silence is the flower sprouting 

upon the branch. 

Silence is the mother singing 

to her newborn babe. 

Silence is the mother crying 

for her stillborn babe. 

Silence is the life of all 

these babes, whose breath 

is a breath of God. 

Silence is seeing and singing praises. 

Silence is the roar of ocean waves. 

Silence is the sandpiper dancing 

on the shore. 

Silence is the vastness of a whale. 

Silence is a blade of grass. 

Silence is sound 

And silence is silence. 

Silence is love, even 

the love that hides in hate. 

Silence is the pompous queen 

and the harlot and the pimp 

hugging his purse on a crowded street. 

Silence is the healer dreaming 

the plant, the drummer drumming 

the dream. It is the lover's 

exhausted fall into sleep. 

It is the call of morning birds. 

Silence is God's beat tapping all hearts. 

Silence is the star kissing a flower. 

Silence is a word, a hope, a candle 

lighting the window of home. 

Silence is everything --the renewing sleep 

of Earth, the purifying dream of Water, 

the purifying rage of Fire, the soaring 

and spiraling flight of Air. It is all 

things dissolved into no-thing--Silence 

is with you always.....the Presence 

of I AM 

~ Elaine Maria Upton