BE STILL:  Learning from Stillness 

	Be still, my soul—
	not clenched in fear, nor closed in grief,
	but breathing like balm through bending boughs
	of ageless, whispering pines,
	where sacred silences have been sown
	before the shaping tongue of names.

	Be still—
	like moonlight milked on midnight waters,
	silver, seamless, softly spread,
	while starry seas slide soundlessly
	through heaven’s hollow hand.

	Be still as a fresh snowfall
	sleeping in winter fields.
	Each feathered flake a small vow,
	each hush a holy layering
	gentleness laid down, deep on deep,
	layer by luminous layer.

	Be still as stones in patient streams,
	time-rounded, tempered, smoothed of edge;
	their sharpness given up to years,
	their silence slowly learned,
	till yielding turns to lasting strength
	and quiet ripens into peace.

	Be still, and feel
	the unseen nearness gathering:
	a mantle warming weary shoulders,
	a vast and vigilant listening,
	a tender gravity drawing you inward,
	calling you home to yourself.

	For stillness is not empty—
	it is a hidden garden,
	a well where whispered wonders wake.
	A door veiled in quiet
	through which the heart remembers
	the sound of its own name.

	Be still—now listen, wholly, deep:
	not only wit ear, but breath and bone.
	Peace does not pass like a passing wind;
	it waits, as starlight waits—
	steadfast beyond the restless world—
	until your inner sky
	grows wide and hushed enough
	to hear it sing.


   The final lines of the poem lingered in the quiet room, leaving a stillness that Juanita was
slow to break. Juanita paused thoughtfully, her fingers tracing the edge of the poem as she
gathered her thoughts. "This reminds me of some of the poems of Christopher Cranch," she said at
last, her voice soft but reflective.

   Jack glanced up. "Christopher who?"

   "Cranch," she repeated, leaning back slightly. "A minor nineteenth-century New England poet and
painter. Not widely read now." A faint, knowing smile crossed her face. "He lived in the shadow
of Emerson and Whitman and echoed them in some ways.  Cranch had a lot of talent, but history
tends to flatten quieter voices."

   Jack let out a slow breath and returned his gaze to the poem. His brow furrowed as though he
were trying to decipher an unfamiliar map.

"Hm. This poem baffles me," he admitted, shaking his head slightly. "This whole idea of telling
someone to 'be still' strikes me as strangely coercive. It feels more like a command and less
like an invitation. " Juanita tilted her head but didn't interrupt. "Shouldn't stillness just…
happen?" Jack went on. "If you have to tell someone to be still, doesn’t that defeat the
point?" The room held his question without answering it.

   Then, from the corner of the room, Shu's low chuckle drifted through the air. He wore a crooked,
almost mischievous smile, as though he had been waiting for someone to voice exactly that
objection. "All literature is a little perverse," he said.

   Then, from the far corner, came a low, amused chuckle. Shu had been leaning back in his chair,
half in shadow, his expression unreadable until now. A crooked smile pulled at one side of his
mouth. "All literature bends the natural order a little," he said. "That's part of its charm."

   Jack frowned faintly. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

   "It means," Shu replied, leaning forward, "that no one needs to be told to breathe either— but
we still write poems about it." His eyes flicked briefly to the page. "Language doesn't just
describe experience. It provokes it."

=====================================================================================
from Lit-A-Rupture: A Post Literary Construction by T Newfields
SUMMARY:   A meditation on stillness as living, radiant presence rather than emptiness.
           and a debate a baffling poem's cryptic demand for silence.
KEYWORDS: contemplative poetry, stillness, inner peace, silence, nature imagery, meditation, 
          calm, introspection, moonlight, breath, solitude, quiet, mindfulness, 
          spiritual listening, Christopher Pearse Cranch 

by T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1980 in Port Angeles, WA ⨳ Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Note: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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