24 Aug
2015
Posted in: Poems
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The Silence Will Be There

For today’s post: another poem, which for me points — however indirectly — to what it’s like (sometimes) to sit in meditation.

Hamper
by Jane Hirshfield

As sunlight or darkness fits itself
around lamp, table, or mountain,

silence stitches itself
around hopes, thoughts, and words.

Some hear it
the sound of their own speech
coming back from where they are dead.

Some find it summer-cool pillow,
winter wool coat.

Some tack their names
on its door and step inside.

And if in that room there is happiness
so without measure
you cannot keep your eyes open to see it,

and if, in that room, sorrow bends
like late nettles in sleet,

the silence will be there also to greet them,

setting each in its wicker hamper
on a plain blanket, two sleepy puppies. 

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