We Need These Silences

Glen Sorestad
From:   Leaving Holds Me Here: Selected Poems. Thistledown Press, 2001.

the spaces that lie
between moments of sharing,
those times when it is
enough to feel the presence
of the other, the knowing
that this silence, too,
is a gift;

the silence of the mountains
or the dark forest,
or the plains at night,
reaching out to touch
some part of us
that craves time alone;

the moments before sleep,
or after waking, when the world
rises or falls into order,
finds shape and meaning
of its own.

We need these silences
as we need the words
we must first learn to say
and then forget
as we come to know
silence.

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Glen Sorestad's works copyright © to the author.