Silentium est pater praedicatorum
*
I have so often sought for the silence
Of a star-lit sky shining without sound,
But found the siren-shattered defiance
Of the world blast and howl as barking hound.
In darkened chapel’s gentle candle glow,
Soul nodding along to silence’s whisper,
I have started or scowled at the blow
Of dropped kneeler or constant sniffler.
But behind the blare and bluster beyond
Beats the baying, broken heart’s own hubbub.
No screeching, nagging noise earth- or hell-spawned,
So slays silence as what the soul strikes up.
Deafen my soul’s ears to ev’ry disquietude.
Speak ephphatha, and pour out thy Word’s plenitude.
✠
Photo by Fr. Romain Marie Bancillon
