Our own fathoms

But the silence in the mind
is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence
we call God. This is the deep
calling to deep of the psalm-
writer, the bottomless ocean
we launch an armada of
our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins;
that calls us out over our
own fathoms. What to do
but draw a little nearer to
such ubiquity by remaining still?

R S Thomas
Counterpoint, p.118

‘Where is the source of your deepest creativity?’ – I ask my artist, poet and writer friends, the thinkers, imaginative day-dreamers, the most effective doers.

‘In silence’, they reply in unison – some introvert and some the very opposite.

‘In silence. That’s where we live life best. That’s where we’re most creative’.

As R S Thomas has it: ‘… never arriving’.

‘In silence’, the concert pianist tells me, as we board the train after a tour de force recital.

‘Without silence there’s no music. No spaces in between. Nowhere to hang the notes.’

Silent. We’re called – ‘out over our / own fathoms’.

Silent. I rest and thrive in this space.