Making Silence

I live in a world that values noise.
It must; there is so much of it.
It communicates. It irritates.
It becomes the tolerable backdrop for life
until, purely by chance, I discover
that there is a state of being,
far superior to noise.
It is that moment when
hiking the forest trail, I step into a
dimension beyond word description,
beyond physical parameters. Motionless.
Not even the sound of the world breathing.
No bird song.

No melody of the river.
No leaf crunch under foot.
The marvelous mystery lasts until my
next breath or until I shift my weight
from one foot to the other, snapping the
brittle branch, creating the rolling echo
that races toward a distant star.
If I create noise, which I can,
I call it life. If I create silence,
which I must, I call it sacred.
Perhaps today is your day to
step into that holy place that
is always on the verge of becoming.
You are good at making noise.
Now, make silence.
Be still and know.