0331 How to Wait Doggedly
I’ve never seen him just like this before.
Crouched at the entrance to the largest run,
the burrowed-out soil in front of it
ground to dust by many eager legs
hopping, skipping out of the dark warren -
he’s totally silent, totally still. It's awesome.
This isn’t the puppy who goes wild at rabbits
in a frenzy of excitement, wet nose intoxicated by
a thousand trails of scent, scattering
white tails into burrows, barking wildly
(are they friends or enemies, in this joy?)
at the sheer excitement of the chase,
puppy paradise; but now..
this is serious stuff.
at first sight, you could think he’s resting, he’s so still;
his back legs haunched down under him, looking
like the sphinx itself, immobile, waiting for the question
it’s waited for through thousands of wise years;
may only answer in this sacred silence;
his nose and head and throat almost flat upon the ground
(this is no time for his 'Tailwaggers' League' identity disc to rattle)
as if at the epicentre of
some invisible geometry of scent and earth-echoed sound,
his ears poised, half-lifted on instant muscles;
he’s the image of relaxation, at first sight:
but a stillness packed with potential energy
wound as ready on electric nerves as in a spring;
a silence so intense it’s thrilling,
full of alertness; a silence right inside his head
that teaches silence, stillness: he’s carrying
no sense of future: he’s living a continuous present,
waiting for the senses to tell him something.
There’s nothing else in the world to do, right now.
A fox terrier flat on the ground at the entrance
to a mere rabbit-hole; we’ve never found a foxhole,
we two; should I apologise to him? If we had,
he’d be in there like a flash; sheer life-or-death ferocity;
but here, nevertheless, it’s serious stuff;
this is what thousands of years of dog
have made him for; that, and what he and man
have learned together from each other; bred in him;
while this present man gazes awestruck at the species
in its perfection of action, action contained in stillness,
stillness and silence containing all the senses,
all contained in knowledge, awaiting, perfect, pure,
what the cosmos will reveal in its good time.
Has my dog just shown me, taught me,
how a poet should await a poem?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes
Discover ‘SILENCE ‘
I discovered a stunning stillness,
‘SILENCE’ a musical wave,
My thoughts dint appear beautiful than this time,
I felt, I regained my inner dead Emotions,
And now ponder more on …Silence’s Beauty...
Silence is a mystery,
And a magical union,
Silence is of soul and heart,
And mind’s internal peace,
Silence unite love with all creations,
And form attachment with all disclosed hearts.
Silence belongs to everyone,
It is beyond word ‘SILENCE’….
It inculcates an extreme essence to fasten together,
And embody a true peace and love within and around.
Silence is present every moment...
And it alerts you to open yourself towards life.
Silence is present every moment...
Within the stillness of nights and peace of early mornings
Silence is present every moment…
To intimate its appearance in all worldly needs.
poem by Richa Dhodi
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A tribute to Ramana Maharshi
Movement, beautiful movement
comes out of stillness;
dancers know this;
sound, beautiful sound,
comes out of silence;
musicians, singers, know this;
what then, of stillness and silence?
Be still for a while;
be silent for a while;
and you will know
all you need to know
and the question, who am I?
is answered
in stillness, in silence,
in the riches of yourself;
in the treasure of yourself.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Monastery
Up the long flight of stairs
every tread echoes from stone walls
as if to comment on how stillness
tells of sound its silent origin.
In the quiet library, the central table
bears a careful written message:
‘Silence is spoken here’..
and that’s truer than
at first it seems to read;
round the walls, shelves of books
as silent as the monks
standing upright in their stalls
witness words that seek to share;
yet ultimately, wave fare well, turn back;
speak of silence sought and silence found;
yet cannot speak of silence;
in the name of silence, take a book,
well-worn, from off the shelf;
meet it in the silence of the room,
read a few words, and lay it down;
glance at the other readers round the room;
fall still.
Here, silence speaks of stillness;
stillness joys in silence.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Silence
Silence-knows no boundaries
As stillness evokes a host of thoughts
A plethora of lovers and their main streets
'Neath the light poles of mistakes and loss;
Oh, how the depths of remembrance-swells
Cast in spirals of fallen loves, doom
Woe, to the silence that beckons in this grief
Woe, to the stillness that calls forth gloom;
Faces and footprints now haunt the unfathomed
My heart has gone pallid from sheer despair
Silence knows no boundaries-nor limits
While blame comes-from out of thin air;
What was it we were doing anyway?
Delving the depths, only to collide in our own mire
This stillness has evoked an absolute truth...
We are, in fact, nothing, without loves desire! ! ;
poem by Theodora Onken
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Wednesday Morning Silence
At eleven O’clock in the morning,
I sit experiencing the stillness
of a Wednesday morning silence coming down.
It seems much earlier,
though the day is half done
after a fun filled Tuesday
that lasted long into the night.
I sit experiencing the stillness
and wondering in the silence
after the rain had come down.
The absent drip of raindrops
sounds like time ticking away
in the Wednesday morning silence coming down.
Sitting on my friends deck
as a cooling breeze rustles the leaves
in the silence of the morning
as I wait for everyone to wake
in a Wednesday Morning silence coming down
while I am on holiday.
poem by David Harris
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Heartsong, heart's dance
In silence, every song that’s sung
is as a wheatgrain in the hand;
known in wonder, love and awe;
its essence more than human sound;
in stillness, every joyful dance
is summed as if in perfect prayer;
though every muscle yearns to praise,
unmoving; more than mind in air;
silence sings and stillness dances
in the freedom of the heart;
self, content to be the watcher;
loving each and every part.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Voices
Blames of my existence are just increasing
Being blamed for something which I never did do
Never did I commit a sin knowingly, although sins are really never known while committing
Everyone just passes out while being alive
The senses just fade, while living
Nothing is present, it is complete stillness
Voices I cannot hear
Complete silence from now, life is going to have
The stillness is going to take a course which will forever be
In this life where everything is temporary, quietness is the only thing eternal
Living in a cage, nobody does like
Sometimes, the heart just desires to break the shackles in every way possible
Nobody can restrain my views
My real thoughts, no longer will be held
I am free, voices are going to be unheard.
poem by Rohit Sapra
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Stillness In Time (Radio Version)
There's a stillness in time
Which I cannot define
Does your heart bleed like mine (oh does your heart, yeah)
For a place we can go
Where the troubles of our time are far away (hey, they're so far away)
And I had all my life in front of me
Now my darkness days are trouble free
There are so many wonderous things for you to see (hey)
If you find that somethings going wrong
Look around at what your running from
You can wait a thousand years in line
For that stillness in time
(oh, yeah) I found love in that way
And I'm never sad, and I'm always glad
Anything you give me today
I will, will be thankful for (yeah, yeah, yeah)
People find it hard to be strong
Cos they don't know where they're coming from (oooh)
There was nothing left to do but hang on
For that stillness in time
(There's a stillness in time
Search the spaces of my mind)
If this world is turning too fast for your head
Just remember how bad times can roll instead
Yes I have to search the spaces in my mind
For that stillness in time.
(Hey) I feel love in that way
And I'm never sad, and I'm always glad
Ooo, Anything you give me today
I will, will be thankful for
People find it hard to be strong
Cause they don't know where they're coming from
Hey, there was nothing left to do but hang on
For that stillness in time.
Ooo, I know that this is the perfect for a sort of bliss
There is no me, for the love I have will stay the same
I have been wrong if I don't know where I'm coming from
If I proceed the things that are inside of me
All of me, in front of me
Oh, see it's all around me
Said I know, said I want to find that stillness in time
Stillness in time, hey
la, la, la, la, la, lo (repeat until end)
song performed by by Jamiroquai
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rumi's silence
Rumi wrote much about silence.
Does that seem strange?
Poets live with silence:
the silence before the poem;
the silence whence the poem comes; .
the silence in between the words, as you
drink the words, watch them glide through your mind,
feel them slide down your throat
towards your heart;
the silence which you share with the poet
when the poem ends, sitting side by side,
feeling one another being one heart;
the silence after the poem,
when you are a different person
from the person who started reading the poem,
think differently, move differently,
act differently; know Rumi a little better
as a friend; know yourself a little more
as a friend.
Rumi was asked, why do you
talk, talk, talk, so much
about silence?
He said, the radiant one inside me
has said nothing.
And that’s the silence which we listen to
and hear in Rumi’s heart,
here, sitting in the cool shade
which the scent of roses seems to love,
while the fountain gently plays like a poet
with sound and silence.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Evcharistos! and not only...
here is the world of not only:
lifting its face, lifting its hands,
beyond not, beyond only, to
not only, but.. to That!
not only for some, but for all.
Be sitting in your chair, or
kneeling before an altar or a statue, or
touching head to ground, or
cross-legged, the sitar and the vina
quietening to silence, the incense
filling the lungs and heart;
or walking through the forest, in the hills; seeing,
not only this, or this, but… that…
Eucharist, Communion, Advaita –
Thanksgiving, coming together as one,
‘not two’… do all these mean the same,
mean, not only?
not only you, but all of us;
not only worshipping, or working;
not only body or spirit;
not only earth or heaven;
but there, where work is worship; worship, work;
where activity is rest;
where Body is Spirit; Spirit, Body;
earth is heaven, and heaven’s on earth;
where sound and silence meet;
where stillness meets activity;
where body and spirit know each other;
take, if you wish, this sip of wine, this crumb of bread,
this handful of water, this flower,
in the memory of centuries and millions,
lifting, too, their faces and their hands;
looking beyond not only, finding, that;
or put your hands together,
as all things come together;
say the word, a word,
give a name to it, to That;
or listen to the sound beyond all names;
the sound that’s in the silence;
the life that’s in the stillness;
or stay with eucharist, communion, advaita, jihad,
sacrifice, surrender, prayer, praise;
they are your guardians and your friends,
smiling as they run toward you, greeting;
calling out to you,
not only… but…
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Stillness: a Poem for the International Day of Stillness, November 28
'Stillness is my beloved teacher.
From her, I learn new things every day.'
I said to Stillness,
how can you teach me so well?
Stillness said,
By being with you always.
I said to Stillness,
How can you teach me so much?
Stillness said,
Because you have much within you;
I, but a mirror for your mind;
I, but a mirror for your heart.
I said to Stillness,
O my beloved teacher, will you
promise me you will never leave me?
Stillness said,
I cannot leave you;
though you can leave me..
but what is stillness without a companion?
I said to Stillness,
Is your work hard?
Stillness said,
I have the most wonderful task that I could wish for:
I sit with babies while they smile;
I sit with children in the classroom
as they delight to learn;
I sit with the angry and disturbed,
And watch them grow to peace;
I sit with the sad and lonely and bereaved
and watch them rediscover happiness and joy;
I sit with kings and queens and rulers
while they find wisdom and mercy;
I sit with governments and committees
while they find reason and justice;
I sit with artists and scientists,
and watch them find new things outside themselves,
and find new things within themselves;
I sit with those who pray or meditate,
and watch them find God in themselves;
I sit at the feet of saints
while they become perfection;
I fly with birds, in the silence of the air;
I watch the animals as they explore the earth;
I hear the growing of the trees and plants;
I listen to the opening of the flowers;
I walk in the gardens of the dawn;
I walk in the gardens of the dusk;
in the deep of the night, I watch.
Said Stillness,
I am the friend and the companion of all;
who would not love to share my life with me?
I said to Stillness,
may I never leave you.
And Stillness looked me in the eye,
and Stillness smiled at me:
‘I am born with every creature born
to be their friend for life.’
*
(With acknowledgements to Iain Trousdell of New Zealand, whose poem quoted from in the first two lines inspired this extension..)
poem by Michael Shepherd
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November 28,2007 is the International Day of Stillness: A Poem for the day
'Stillness is my beloved teacher.
From her, I learn new things every day.'
I said to Stillness,
How can you teach me so well?
Stillness said,
By being with you always.
I said to Stillness,
How can you teach me so much?
Stillness said,
Because you have much within you;
I, but a mirror for your mind;
I, but a mirror for your heart.
I said to Stillness,
O my beloved teacher, will you
promise me you will never leave me?
Stillness said,
I cannot leave you;
though you can leave me..
but what is stillness without a companion?
I said to Stillness,
Is your work hard?
Stillness said,
I have the most wonderful task that I could wish for:
I sit with babies while they smile;
I sit with children in the classroom
as they delight to learn;
I sit with the angry and disturbed,
and watch them grow to peace;
I sit with the sad and lonely and bereaved
and watch them rediscover happiness and joy;
I sit with kings and queens and rulers
while they find wisdom and mercy;
I sit with governments and committees
while they find reason and justice;
I sit with artists and scientists,
and watch them find new things outside themselves,
and find new things within themselves;
I sit with those who pray or meditate,
as they find God in themselves;
I sit at the feet of saints
while they become perfection;
I walk in the gardens of the dawn,
I walk in the gardens of the dusk;
in the deep of the night, I watch;
I fly with birds, in the silence of the air;
I watch the animals as they explore the earth;
I listen to the growing of the trees and plants;
I listen to the opening of the flowers;
Said Stillness,
I am the friend and the companion of all;
who would not love to share my life with me?
I said to Stillness,
May I never leave you.
And Stillness looked me in the eye,
and Stillness smiled at me:
‘I am born with every creature born
to be their friend for life.’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Silence Is...
Silence is an absence
Silence is profound
Silence is a conversation
Being had without sound
Silence is an expression
One that cannot be heard
Silence cannot be spoken
Although it is a word
Silence is a presence
Of great nothingness
Silence can be something
And yet cease to exist
Silence can fill a room
And have no mass at all
Silence cannot be dropped, yet it can fall
Silence is a mystery
That will forever go unsolved
Silence is how every sound can swiftly be dissolved
Silence is the sound of rest
The only sound that can sound best
While other sounds can cause great pain
Silence is not the sound to blame
For Silence is what silence is
Something that is nothing
Nothing that exists
poem by Kyle.J Carruthers
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Silence Is the Universal Library
Is there ever a true moment of silence?
There can be no such moment
Unless we should move
To the world before the world.
Since nothing is absolute
There is no absolute silence,
Only an appearance
Of temporary peace.
Since there is no real silence,
Silence will contain all the sounds,
All the words, all the languages,
All knowledge, all memory.
Everything is contained within this library
In the brain of the Universe—
Its source of inexhaustible energy
In the library of the silence.
poem by Dejan Stojanovic
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Eternal Silence
Silence
Silence when we are walking,
Silence when we think,
Silence is what fills us all,
With a binding eternal link.
Silence in the little children,
Silence in the adults,
Silence wrapping around us all,
Silence pulsing in the walls.
Silence fills this hollow world,
Silence is the choice we make,
Silence is the death of this all,
Silence is our fate.
poem by Okami Kamikaze
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Dawgs of War
Comes the British bulldog first—solid as a log—
He’s so ugly in repose that he’s a handsome dog;
Full of mild benevolence as his years increase;
Silent as a china dog on the mantelpiece.
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and in he goes,
To the thick of Britain’s foes—
Enemies behind him close—
(
Silence for a while
).
Comes a very different dog—tell him at a glance.
Clipped and trimmed and frilled all round. Dandy dog of France.
(Always was a dandy dog, no matter what his age)
Now his every hair and frill is stiff as wire with rage.
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and in he goes,
While behind him France’s foes
Reel and surge and pack and close.
(
Silence for a while
.)
Next comes Belgium’s market dog—hard to realise.
Go-cart dog and barrow dog—he’s a great surprise.
Dog that never hurt a cat, did no person harm;
Friendly, kindly, round and fat as a “Johnny Darm.”
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and in he goes,
At the flank of Belgium’s foes
Who could not behind him close—
(
Silence for a while
).
Next comes Servia’s mongrel pup—mongrel dawgs can fight;
Up or down, or down or up, whether wrong or right.
He was mad the other day—he is mad today,
Hustling round and raising dust in his backyard way.
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and in he goes,
’Twixt the legs of Servia’s foes,
Biting tails and rearmost toes—
(
Silence for a while
.)
There are various terrier dawgs mixed up in the scrap,
Much too small for us to see, and too mad to yap.
Each one, on his frantic own—heard the row commence—
Tore with tooth and claw a hole in the backyard fence.
No one called, but in they go,
Dogs with many a nameless woe,
Tripping up their common foe—
(
Silence for a while
).
From the snows of Canada, dragging box and bale,
Comes the sledge-dog toiling on, sore-foot from the trail.
He’ll be useful in the trench, when the nose is blue—
Winter dog that knows the French and the English too.
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and in he goes,
At his father’s country’s foes,
And his mother’s country’s foes.
(
Silence for a while
.)
See, in sunny Southern France a dog that runs by sight,
Lean and yellow, sharp of nose, long of leg and light,
Silent and bloodthirsty, too; Distance in his eyes,
Leaping high to gain his view, the Kangaroo Dog flies!
Rub his sides and point his nose,
Click your tongue and up he goes,
Lands amongst his country’s foes—
And his country’s country’s foes;
While they sway and while they close—
(
Silence for a while
).
See across the early snow, far across the plain,
Where the clouds are grey and low and winter comes again;
By the sand-dune and the marsh—and forest black and dumb—
As dusky white as their winter’s night, the Russian wolf-hounds come!
(
Silence for a while
.)
poem by Henry Lawson
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In That Moment: A Meditation
one comes to the water, to the ocean, and one observes…without a companion, without chatter and with bodily stillness, and with no projection of one’s one expectations and conditioning, one observes…one sees what is before one…and in that moment, in that instant, there is no one there with an identity; no one coming from the past to say: this is what I am; this is what I did – and this was done to me; and such a person did this; and in that moment, in that observing, in that seeing of the ocean, of the water, in the seeing of what is before one, there is none that asserts its identity; there is none to speak of its name and its nationality and its pride and associations and its past, and there is none to reach out for a future: there is the moment; the stillness; the silence…
poem by Raj Arumugam
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Inside me was the stillness
Woven, high between bare branches
rooks nests gather where new growth sprouts,
amidst the stillness inside me.
A tiny blue tit twittering,
flitters towards a coconut,
feeding the stillness inside me
The sky, open, glistening blue,
white clouds sailing, a seagull soaring,
through the stillness inside me.
A purple pansy perfect as the stillness inside me
until............
people came
knocking, ringing, wanting
Then the stillness was gone.
poem by Diana Rosser
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Early Morning Silence
Sitting in the early morning silence
that hasn’t filled with
the approaching days gloom.
That time when the mind
has a chance to run free.
The early morning silence
when no one is around.
The intrusive world has not
invaded our space with idle chatter
from sources that surround us
making up our daily lives.
The early morning silence
we need to activate our mind.
You sit in the darkness
just before the dawn appears
enjoying the solitary that is temporary stillness
brings to your ears.
The early morning silence
when no one is around.
16 September 2010
poem by David Harris
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Silence Echos
Silence
makes my heart break
Silence
Love, does not make
Silence
Was it all just a terrible mistake?
Silence
Was love just a game, just fake?
Silence
Leaves me heartbroken
Silence
Kills he feeling behind words unspoken
Silence
has is a shield you hide behind
Silence
Guards what's on your mind
Silence
Chills your heart's sound
Silence
Love cannot silently be found
Silence
has turned your dreams blind
Silence
is darkness in which you cannot find
Silence
Crushes the hopeful feelings that were kind
Silence
Of emptiness it did remind
Silence
Silence took all I sought to find
Silence
Silence was hurtful and unkind
Silence
Will kill love before it ripens on the vine
Love will go silently
But it's lonely hurt will echo for all time
poem by James T. Adair
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