Seeking Grace

At night I walked

in forest

over hills

through shallow water

going nowhere, but

seeking solitude

seeking silence

seeking something I called

grace

Even in rural

Pennsylvania

it was always too loud—

certainly among others—

to hear it

so I wandered away

from light and noise

into clutches of dark trees

where I always felt home

I looked starward

chest aching

I begged the sky

and the earth

and the trees

to fill me with grace—

which I understood

as the end of

yearning

the quiet within

I couldn't find

without

If I got far enough out

where stars brightened

I sometimes caught

a moment of

true silence

(or close enough)

and I'd think—

there it is

let me take this

grace

into my heart

and carry it

with me

back

into the din

In that moment

I was the sky

and the earth

and the trees

and I yearned

for nothing

Then

on a distant road

a roaring truck would

pierce the moment

and I would grieve

to have touched

grace

and lost it

again

How gossamer a thing

is grace,

I thought,

to live only in

perfect silence

how unjust

that it be

so elusive

Of course

I was a fool

mistaking

solitude

for sanctity

silence

for peace

stillness

for grace