silence on fire

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?

-thomas merton (1915 - 1968), 

from his poem, in silence