by Jesse Sorrell

Daniele Levis Pelusi, digital photograph. Courtesy of Unsplash.

A Gesture of Silence

Jesse Sorrell | MAY 2023 | Issue 23

The small silences are everything.
Nothing but silence,
this breath.
This inhaling of life,
this mouthing open a crisp apple.

Everything is to be known.
All the roads cross each other
where one known ends yet to begin
so stay close to your breath and bones.
Nothing is large under the silence of stars.

The sun is a memory
frozen in the corner of the universe
that was once the epicenter of nothingness,
the smallest particle becoming so bright an abyss
that all celestial bodies were birthed with eyes wide open.

Find the orchard where the silence is blossoming.
Where the melody is nothing but breath
becoming the bones of everything.
The poem of your hand is gesturing open.

How infinite the response.

Here is my body with yours.

Jesse Sorrell lives in Durham, NC and writes what he hears being shared between the elements. He practices spiritual care in pediatric hospice/palliative care and in other therapeutic settings. He loves living with and learning from his cat, Milo.