Those who are accustomed to meditate will know that at a certain point you can touch the great silence, the center, the source of all good... Would that men and women would seek silence more often, as we used to do in past ages. In our Indian days we who had the welfare of the people at heart would climb high into the mountains to meditate at the rising and the setting of the sun, and we would not leave our post until we had an answer to our prayer. We did not attempt to solve our problems amidst the noise of the camp fire, but repaired to the mountain top -- not only the physical mountain, but the mountain of high consciousness. We recognized the great power which lay in the silence.
at the edge of this ploughed field
where sunlight catches meadow grasses
and turns them silver-yellow....
I prefer it here, at the line
where the forest intersects
the field, where deer and groundhog
move back and forth to feed
and hide. On these juts and outcroppings
I can look both ways, moving
As that crow does, all gracelessness
and sway....
This life is not easy,
but wings mix up with leaves there,
like the moment when surf turns into
undertow or breaker, and I can
poise myself and hold
for a long time, profoundly
neither one place nor another.