A Wednesday in Lent

From my morning quiet.

Silence

And in her middle years
she discovers silence.

Not the kind you find
In a remote abbey nor
on a grand cathedral,
Not the type you seek
in silent retreats
nor in places of meditation.

But the sitting down
in the kitchen bench type
The standing in front
of the stovetop type
The folding the week’s washing type
While dinner sizzles over fire
While the washing piles up high
While kids with sticky hands
Ask the day’s hundredth ‘why.’

And this silence overcomes all noise
And this silence surpasses all haste
And this silence provides her peace
A peace that passeth all understanding.

—Asther Bascuna-Creo