POEM - Meditation

All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly in a room.
~Blaise Pascal, Pensees, II, 139

How do you know the silence?
Is it a cathedral whose spires greet the morning?

Is it a room that is kept locked,
one you stumble into against your will from time to time?

Words are very hungry things and need it to live.
Are your words cherub faced, round and content?

Or are they thin as gruel,
distended belly grossly protruding?

How do you acknowledge the silence,
the whispery shadowy face of it, the dimly lit smile of it?

Does its heart beat just below your beating?
Does it breathe just below your breathing?

Does it live deep inside you as your hottest wish,
one that nags at you? And why dear God, does it frighten you too?