The phoebe sits on her nest
Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Waiting for life to burst out
From under her warmth.
Can I weave a nest of silence,
weave it of listening,
listening, listening,
Layer upon layer?
But one must first become small,
Nothing but a presence,
Attentive as a nesting bird,
Proffering no slightest wish
Toward anything
that might happen or be given,
Only the warm, faithful waiting,
contained in one’s smallness.
Beyond the question,
the silence.
Before the answer,
the silence.
The formless, what is that? As a pianist, I can best begin to understand through the study of piano music: notes on a page, each one to be taken hold of by the fingers and made to sing. One learns to listen, to seek the composer's intention, to try to recapture the tempo; to give attention to every note, however small, and to love each silence... Music is a transmission from one person to another, a deepening of understanding, and an awakening to the sense of beauty and order which lives deep inside us.