Poem: An Electromagnetic Bell in the Theatre (please comment)

An electromagnetic bell rings:

-

in the ornate

nearly empty auditorium,

-

in the bar

where patrons perform set pieces,

-

in the cloak room

where fine furs hang patiently,

-

and dressing rooms

where nervous actors wait.

-

It rings again,

a final call.

-

The ringing stops.

The clapper’s silent

oscillations die.

Tantra Tatra (Thomas Merton)

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

In Silence by Thomas Merton

Tantra Tatra Oct 2008

What to say, when words follow so far behind.