Stones On Fire
/Stones Are Burning
Here is a poem of burning stones and silence by Thomas Merton.
In Silence
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?
Thomas Merton had quite the wide-ranging life from agnostic to priest. His background covered a lot of physical ground as well from France to New York, to England, Rome and Thailand.
This poem evokes an inner fire that burns within all that is. Everything that comes into existence springs forth from an inner fire of God or the whole of existence.
Burning Stones On Fire
“The whole world is secretly on fire...”
Merton asks how a man can be still and listen to all things burning.
We are numbed to the point of deafness by the never-ending noise of this planet.
The man-made cacophony created by every type of machinery known-to-man is out of balance with nature and our natural rhythms. We keep slipping away from anything that is natural, all the while insisting it is "normal."
To hear the burning, you have to listen with care.
The Radiance Technique® And Poetry
Students of The Radiance Technique® (TRT®) can meditate with this poem.
You could also apply TRT® hands-on as you read the poem and see what meaning it holds for you. You could apply your TRT® at the throat center as you read this poem. Or, perhaps with your hands in your heart.
“Listen to the living walls...”
