Quiet

When my body grows quiet

and the chatter in my mind subsides,

talked out, like a storm's angry wind

losing its concentration and dispersing

to the corners of the sky--

Friction, that's how we get through life,

whether it's the ground underfoot, the hum of the wheels

or the wind's song in the ears,

gravity's pull on us all, flesh and bone aging

while somewhere the soul is polished,

brought to brightness from this force,

if we're lucky, maybe enough

to reflect, gleaming, burnished, polished,

ground down until shapes emerge, these

prisoners in a crucible we carry all the time.

When the mind quiets and the body speaks,

stories of forbearance, the foundation of this self,

the pilings below the pier, the house's foundation,

stresses of shifting earth, the settling that slows

but never ends, moving the level a fraction off plumb--

Is there ever any true stillness?

This restless flesh, this twitching thing, seen only now

by this quiet, still soul.