The Sermon on the Stump
by Donald S. Yarab
It was raining. The crowd—
too few to be a crowd—perhaps
a gathering, or the assembled,
more ghosts than listeners,
their coats darkened not just by weather
but by the weight of waiting.
He stood on the stump,
not of authority, but of loss—
the remnant of a tree felled long before,
as if the forest had once believed
in clearing room for prophecy.
He spoke not of thunder,
but of hush. Not of redemption,
but of what remained
after the soil forgot its seed.
The gathering, if such it was,
did not cheer, nor weep.
They listened with the rain,
as if the water itself
were translating his broken cadence
into something nearly true.
He spoke not of hope, or loss,
of tomorrow, or yesterday,
or even today.
He named no sins,
offered no absolution,
held no book but the hush
of water sliding down his sleeve.
His voice did not rise.
It pooled.
Like the rain in the hollow of the stump
beneath him.
He said only:
“You have heard the wind.
Now hear the stillness it leaves behind.”
And they did not answer.
Not from doubt,
but because his words were not questions.
They were roots—
groping downward through silence,
seeking something older than belief.
A dog barked in the distance.
A child shifted,
not from boredom,
but from the weight of understanding
too early what it meant to stand still
in a world that keeps spinning.
He stepped down,
the stump left wet,
as if it had wept a little too.
And the assembled, if that is what they were,
dispersed—no closer,
no farther,
but marked.
Some were bewildered.
Others thought they were enlightened,
but knew not how.
Still others could not recall
what he had said,
only that his voice was comforting,
his cadence soothing—
not the lullaby of forgetfulness,
but the murmur of rain on old wood,
reminding them of something
they had never quite known.
No creed was offered.
No call to return.
Yet a few found themselves
walking more slowly afterward,
listening more intently
to trees, to puddles,
to silences that did not demand reply.
And the stump remained—
neither altar nor monument,
but a place where words once settled
like mist
and did not vanish.
Northcoast Antiquarian 