A Poem

Poem by Jerilyn Harris, shared on the closing day of the SpiritRest Silent Retreat.

​Words can be velvet
but they can also be small stones
that get trapped in a shoe,
or be the sticks and stones
people use
to throw at each other.

Silence too,
can pierce the the soul,
or it can heal.

In your gentle silence, dear friend,
I have heard so many different voices:

In your gentle silence,
I have heard the longing
of the earth to be cared for.

Community altar from SpiritRest Silent Retreat

​In your silence,
I have heard the 
awakened demands
of my past;
to perform,
to pry,
to protect at all costs.

In your silence I have heard
the desperate cry
from a place of light
that all may know love.

In your gentle silence,
I have heard a soothing sound
in the stillness of the trees
and the humming of the bees,
that says,
come, as you are,
you are perfect in your 
be-ing.

In your gentle silence, 
my burdens have mingled with yours,
like stones in a riverbed, 
sometimes touching,
sometimes exploding,
sometimes caressing.

Through your loving silence,
tendrils of freedom have dripped,
like honey
into my tender soul
and carved a way through
the stones I carry,
thought the years of fixated answers,
dogma,
and shame,
into a field outside it all,
where I can hear
a voice of
unending love.