We like to say that stillness comes with night
That on hot summer evenings we can hear God breathe
But I disagree.
Summer nights, beautiful as they come,
Are filled with crickets, cicadas, birds of prey, and the sound of growing
They smell of burnt marshmallows and laughter
Bursting with life,
Loud and exuberant.
No, summer nights are not still.
It is in winter,
When death and slumber rule the woods,
Where even our breath is muffled by the cold,
Frozen into puffs of clouds.
The night does not sing as summer,
Cicadas and crickets and owls and coyotes
Calling out in the heat.
No.
Silence basks in moonlight on a bed of leaves
That tucked the summer away in their fall.
It is here that we find the still in the night
The quiet so deep we must look inward for sound
Heartbeats and whispers of breath,
Memories filling our inner ear,
Unable to keep the quiet.
But when calmed,
When frozen still by the cold,
You can hear it,
The throbbing in the dirt,
The heartbeat of the earth,
The subtle zephyrs through naked trees
The breath of gods.
Here,
We find the still in the night.