Silence is a quality of snow.
Eager to hear it, I trudge through virgin fields,
Awake at the heart of nothingness, and so
Seized press on, as the world's white oneness yields.
Oh, what happiness! Though the deadly cold
Numbs the extremities, traveling inward.
'Ere it reaches the heart, I turn, the old
Songs singing in my head as I head homeward.
Give thanks, then, for the unforgiving silence,
Revelation in white swaddling clothes,
Eden's seed asleep as we find radiance
Even in the bleak December snows.
To be is to contain the holy light,
In nothingness the being ever born,
Never more the locus of delight,
Grace the equal gift of day and night,
Shining like a candle until dawn.
Nicholas Gordon