Great Silent Mystery

author's note:

“Exploring the silence gives poetic thought birth.”
         -- Pao Hsien (trans. Paul Hansen)


GREAT SILENT MYSTERY

As the story goes...

when our ancestors felt the mystery
of a tree or river
or mountain
or creature
they wanted to talk to it
and learn what it was

and so began to drum.

Whatever sound echoed back
then became the name
of that bounder, beast, or shrub.

But after all the many things
had been named

the people sensed the presence
of one final mystery--

a mystery unseen--

a mystery everywhere all the time.

However
this mystery would not
answer our ancestors
no matter how hard
they banged their drums

so finally they stopped
to listen
to determine the nature
of an essence so strange.

The people then heard
the silent mystery resounding
throughout the stillness
--dominating earth and sky--
all the named things suddenly
lost their names
because everything became part
of that great mystery.

Those folks even began to feel
the unnamed mystery within themselves
and then, anxious to preserve their identity
they returned to drumming
and felt comforted by the noisy distraction.

But whenever
they felt dull in their days
they’d stop

to listen to the silent mystery

until they became overwhelmed
once more.

At this point in my walk
I feel the need to stop
because I sense something missing--
I’m tired of all these things around me--
tired of all the words, the names.

So I’m trying to regress--
I’m trying to shut up long enough
to feel the power
of the great silent mystery

not to escape life, but to know
the life within everything

and know the life--feel the life--
within me, once more.

cutting artichoke stalks – slow TV
© 2021, Michael R. Patton