STILLNESS

May 14, 2023

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

     These essays are usually written in stillness, a completely quiet time when the spring birds are tuning up in early morning or the coffee pot is percolating its gathering scent in a colder moment. 

    Stillness is a gift that insulates you from the street noise, the later cacophony of lawn mowers, weed whackers, loud music and people chatter. Stillness is that of this morning writing; is that in which you immerse  on a solitary walk; is that of the you-can-hear-a-pin-drop silence on a youthful date with someone you have much conversation with but also cherish the trust of mutual quiet because you completely know that the period of the last uttered sentence is really just a pause. More to come.

     How golden silence is, and it comes from stillness. 

     There is great poetry, too, in stillness because there is no noise, no competing sounds hopping around your head. You have no need in stillness to grab that next breakfast bite, to read the morning tabloid  crime story, to look at the to-do list for yet another busy day. Whatever it is in nature, in the human condition, in romance, writes its own lines of verse in the quiet of stillness.

     “Listen” in stillness, stare at the light; it is yoga of the mind.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com

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