Poem: From the silence

Chaos of terror and battering storms of emotion
Bashing the hull and ripping at the rigging --
Can't tell: is water pouring over outside
Or pouring in inside?
So much it's hard to say.
Will something come loose?
What sail could hold against this?
What rudder keep on?
Doesn't matter.... It doesn't matter. These are the ones I have.


The soul breathes regardless.
I remember that the answers come in the silence.
Step outside the storm, though it goes on without me
Feeling it, but outside, on the hull, not inside, not in me.
This vessel holds.

So I pause, heart whole or heart breaking,
and hold the silence
until I need to speak; and
if I speak from the silence,
then can answers come.