Stillness and a Great Shout of Joy


Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born. 

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world. 

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say. 

All those years
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard. 


All those years

how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous

Silence and winter
have led me to that
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life

I must call my own. 

~David Whyte, from "The Winter of Listening"

Sarah Burns