An inner city priest went to the home of a poor old lady in the parish. She was dying. When the priest came to her side, she said, "Don't talk and don't run." She seemed to want to die fully appreciative of her life in God, which was too deep for any consoling words at that point. And she wanted to die appreciative of the human community that incarnates God's presence on this plane of existence, which was too deep for words but not for silent, prayerful human presence. That is contemplative dying.
...We can approach all of the myriad little ego deaths, all the ways we don't get what we want (as opposed to what we need) in our lives, in the same way as that woman faced physical death... We need to leave room for the silence that can free the wonder, as well as for words.
There is no dark like a night replete with the mystery of death. There is no truth like a fleeting wind. There is no lover like a lonely tree. There is no friend like a blade of faithful grass. There is no light like a solitary beam from the sun. There is no poem like an evolving earth and no Poet like the great Grace of Silence.
~ from POEMS OF THE SACRED UNKNOWN by Richard W. Bachtold
A poem is a passionate prayer of song with blessings from and for the faithful All, an innocent, sacramental creation remembering ancient tradition, a gift of praise at an invisible altar, and a lone priestly vision embraced by sacred silence, seeking forever the eternal unknown.
Sacred hart in the blackening wilderness stately deer, gracefully bounding, holy vision of the Eternal Heart; countless, unending blood memories, surge like gold through your rhythmic veins, ancient paths stir the soul's journey. Sleeping titans stand on the edge, disregarding the dark, grasping webs of life, or silver antlers shining with white wisdom, of pulsating pearls of poetry flowing from open eyes of song, as the saintly sculpture disappears from its vanishing home into a dying paradise.
