The Holiness of Silence

I remember the silence of the desert.
I entered those wild lands
of heat and cracked earth and wind
that twisted everything it kissed.

My shadow danced, a stumbling gait
on the solitary plains and morphing hills
that rose and sank and shimmered
under a sky absent of clouds.

I felt its blueness.
It lay heavy on my skin,
and tasted of bronze,
burnished--
polished--
swept clean
and empty.

I saw visions there,
and felt the echoes of stardust,
and still my shadow danced--
there was no hiding from it
in the silence and sere beauty
Of wind and earth and trackless glory.

I walked
And danced
And stumbled, weary,
in a vast and antique land
of desolate grandeur,
To gather together
my brokenness,
to return to the gate of Heaven
and rest, at last,
in the hand of God.

I remember the desert
and the holiness of silence.