Face the Silence

Face the Silence

(“Only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen what is best, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:42)

I want to face the silence,
embrace the quiet alone where
my tears are understood,
and Jesus untangles the thoughts that
have short-circuited where the fabric is worn
and the bare wires touch; memory affecting future,
misfiring every emotion, stalling every venture
I might have begun if I had won the battle,
slain the monsters of the abyss who insist
the kinks are all impossible to unknot.

Tell me, in my silence, once I am able to hear,
teach me in my place seated at your feet
what I need to hear, why I still tear up after
ages of knowing there is no need for exploding prayers
that leave the atmosphere bitter with gunpowder’s tang.

Let the waters flow deep, seeping through the handful
off burrows I’ve left open following the tilt of the shale
to the heart’s well waiting its fill.

I am quick off my knees, hard to please, and sensitive to
these
thoughts that loop endlessly. I am ill at ease after
five minutes of silently; and seek my books to
capture my mind, disguise my inclined plane that
leads from stillness to the uneasy patter of doing nothing
with all my neurons firing. Busy, I accomplish little.

Quiet, I sit and twiddle my thumbs.

And yet I still long for the best part that comes
while I sit, even fidgety, at your feet.