This poem sat on my desk for the past week and Silence motivated me to share what silence, as space, provides in our lives.
What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between
as much as the wood.
When we are able3 to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that makes fire possible.
We only need lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.
Silence offers the space between words in our life; a pause, momentary silence for reflection, and a soft, gentle breath of air adding life to our words.
Teacher as Transformer 